The impression was so vivid that it clouded everything else, just as a white light focussed upon one figure on the stage dims all others there. He thought of himself, and what he should do with life after his mission was finished; whether he should take the name of Delatour, which was rightfully his, or choose a new one; yet suddenly, in the midst of some pressing question, he would forget to search for the answer, as Sanda DeLisle's transfigured face seemed to shine on him out of darkness.
He stayed away from the hotel for precisely an hour, and then, returning, asked at the desk of the concierge whether there were a message for him. Yes, there was a letter. Max took it, thinking that this was perhaps the last time he should ever see the name of Doran on an envelope addressed to him. The direction had been scrawled in haste, evidently, but even so, the handwriting had grace and character. Its delicacy, combined with a certain firmness and impulsive dash, expressed to Max the personality of the writer. The letter was of course from Miss DeLisle; a short note asking if he would look for her on the terrace at six-thirty. She would be alone then. Max glanced at the hall clock. It wanted only three minutes of the half hour, and he went out at once. The scene on the terrace was very different from what it had been an hour ago. It might have been "set" for another act, was the fancy that flashed through the young man's mind. The hyacinth-pink of the sunset-sky was now faintly silvered with moonlight. All the gay groups of tea-drinking people had disappeared. Many of the crowding chairs had been taken away from the little tables and pushed back against the irregular wall of the house. The floor was being slowly inlaid with strips of shadow-ebony and moon-silver. Even the perfume of the flowers seemed changed. Those which had some quality of mystery and sensuous sadness in their scent had prevailed over the others.
At first Max saw no one, and supposed that Miss DeLisle had not yet come to keep the appointment; but as he slowly paced the length of the terrace, he discerned, standing on the farther side of the pillar-gateway, a figure that paused close to the carved balustrade and looked out over the garden. There was a suggestion of weariness and discouragement in the pose, and though the form had Sanda's tall slimness he could hardly believe it to be hers, until passing through the gateway he had come quite close to her. She turned at the sound of footsteps; and in the rose-and-silver twilight he could see that her eyes were full of tears.
Somehow it struck him as characteristic of the girl that she should not try to pretend she had not been crying. He could scarcely imagine her being self-conscious enough to pretend anything.
"Is it half-past six already?" she asked, in a very little voice, almost like that of a child who had been punished. "I'm glad you've come. Will you forgive me?"
"Forgive you for what?" Max asked, though he guessed what she meant, and added hastily, "I'm sure there's nothing to forgive."
"Yes, there is," she insisted; "you know that as well as I do. But you will forgive me, because—because I think you must have understood. I was not myself at all."
Max hesitated and stammered. He did not dare admit how well he had understood, though it seemed a moment for speaking clear truths, here in this wonderful garden which they two had to themselves, with the magic light of sunset and moonrise shining into their souls.
"You needn't be afraid of shaming me," the girl went on. "I felt that you understood everything, so we can talk now, when I've come back a little to myself. I didn't mind your seeing, then, because everything seemed unimportant except—just him, and my being there with him. And I don't mind even now, because there's so much that's the same in my life and yours. I feel (as I felt before I was carried out of myself) that we've drifted together at a time when we can help each other. You can forgive me for being selfish and thoughtless to you, because I was at a great moment of my life, and you realized it. Didn't you?"
"Yes," said Max.