They stood up, knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and prepared to walk on.
It was a mild June day, small vague hills stretched behind them, and before them soft, lawn-like fields fell away to the river’s edge.
Everywhere the green of trees in a hundred tones of color and with delicate, innumerable leaf shadows, laid upon the landscape, the fragrance and lightness of the spring.
They were in a temperate land, every yard of it was cultivated and civilized, immensely lived on and understood. None of it had been neglected or was dangerous or strange to the eye of man.
Simultaneously the thought flashed between them of other lands and of sharper vicissitudes; they saw again bleak passes which were cruel death traps, and above them untrodden alien heights; they felt the solemn vastness of the interminable, flawless snows. They kept their eyes away from each other — but they knew what each other was feeling, adventure and danger were calling to them — the old sting and thrill of an unending trail; and then from a little hollow in the guarded hills rang out the wedding bells.
Lionel looked a little shyly at his chief. “I wonder,” he said, as Winn made no response, “if we can ever do things — things together again, I mean — I should like to think we could.” Winn gave him a quick look and moved hastily ahead over the field path toward the church. “Why the devil shouldn’t we?” he threw back at Lionel over his shoulder.
CHAPTER IV
Estelle’s wedding was a great success, but this was not surprising when one realized how many years had been spent in preparation for it. Estelle was only twenty-three, but for the last ten years she had known that she would marry, and she had thought out every detail of the ceremony except the bridegroom. You could have any kind of a bridegroom — men were essentially imperfect — but you need have only one kind of ceremony, and that could be ideal.
Estelle had visualized everything from the last pot of lilies — always Annunciation ones, not Arum, which look pagan — at the altar to the red cloth at the door. There were to be rose-leaves instead of rice; the wedding was to be in June, with a tent in the garden and strawberries.
If possible, she would be married by a bishop; if not, by a dean. The bishop having proved too remote, the dean had to do. But he was a fine-looking man, and would be made a bishop soon, so Estelle did not really mind. The great thing was to have gaiters on the lawn afterward.