"We have been here an hour and a half, and we promised to be back in an hour—remember that, Mr. Spenser," said Margaret, who had seated herself near him.
"The bare outlines," murmured Lucian.
He did not appear to wish to speak. As for Garda, she looked as though she should never speak again; she looked like a picture more than a real presence—a picture, but not of nineteenth-century painting. She did not stir, her eyes were full of a wonderful light. After a while it seemed to oppress Margaret—this glowing vision beside the gray tomb in the still wood. She rose and went to Lucian, watching him work, she began to talk. "It's fortunate that you have already sketched the tomb," she said; "you can use that sketch for the details."
He did not reply, Garda's softly fixed eyes seemed to hold him bound.
Margaret looked at her watch; then she went to Garda, took the wreath from her, and, putting her arm in hers, led her back towards the path. "I am obliged to use force," she said. "The sitting is declared over."
"Till the next, then," said Garda to Lucian.
As he began to pack up his sketching materials, Margaret went back and hung her wreath upon the old stones. "In some future world, that shade will come and thank me," she said.
Then they left the wood, and started down the path on their way back to the shore.
They found Mrs. Spenser with both complexion and temper improved; her greatest wish always was to hide her jealousies from Lucian, and this time she succeeded. Mr. Moore had made a fire at a distance, and boiled their coffee; he was now engaged in grilling their cold meat by spearing each slice with the freshly peeled end of one of the long stiff leaf-stalks of the saw-palmetto. These impromptu toasting-forks of his, four feet in height, he had stuck in the ground in an even circle all round the fire, their heads bending slightly towards the flame; when one side of the range of slices was browned, he deftly turned each slice with a fork, so as to give the other side its share.
Torres had made no attempts as regarded grilling and boiling, he and Rosalie had spent the time in conversation. Rosalie had, in fact, detained him, when, after bringing the boys and baskets safely to her glade, he had looked meditatively down the road which led to the old tomb. "What do you think of the Alhambra?" she asked, quickly.