The rout went on, and presently Naylor and his violin were pressed into the service to second the piano. In the passage outside a number of the Hottentot servants, emulative of their betters, had got up a dance of their own and waxed merry, and laughed and chattered exceedingly, till at last Jim Brathwaite, hearing the row, sallied forth and cleared them all out summarily.
The hours wear on apace. In the silence of the garden the air is fragrant with the cool breaths of night distilling from the myrtle and the flowering pomegranate. High in the heavens hangs a gold half-moon whose lustre pierces a leafy canopy, scattering a network of filmy light upon the shaded earth. In and out of the gloomy shadows of the orange trees a firefly or two trails in mid air a floating spark. All is rest. Now and again a burst of voices and music is borne from the house, yet here it penetrates but feebly, and Night—silver, moon-pierced, star-studded Night—is queen amid the mysterious silence of her witching court.
Two figures wandering down the orange walk in the alternate light, and gloom, and dimness. Listen! That low, melodious voice can belong to no other than Lilian Strange.
“I am so glad we came out here for a little. I had no idea there could be such a night as this except in books.”
“Perhaps it strikes you the more, contrasted with the row and junketing indoors,” said her companion.
“No. In any case it would be delicious. And yet there is something of awe about a night like this—don’t laugh at me—it always seems a mysterious shadow-land connecting us with another world.”
“Laugh at you! Why won’t you give me credit for a capability of entering into any of your ideas?”
“But I do. You are more capable of it than any one I know. There.”
“Thanks for that, anyway.”