". . . -eus, not -eal," murmured Marsh; "not that I know any more than you what it is."
Marise felt suddenly wrought upon by the mildness of the spring air, the high, tuneful shrillness of the frogs' voices, the darkness, sweet and thick. She would not amuse them; no, she would really tell them, move them. She chose the deeper intonations of her voice, she selected her words with care, she played upon her own feeling, quickening it into genuine emotion as she spoke. She would make them feel it too.
"It is a plant of the cactus family, as native to America as is Ashley's peculiar sense of beauty which you won't acknowledge. It is as ugly to look at, the plant is, all spines and thick, graceless, fleshy pads; as ugly as Ashley life looks to you. And this crabbed, ungainly plant-creature is faithfully, religiously tended all the year around by the wife of a farmer, because once a year, just once, it puts forth a wonderful exotic flower of extreme beauty. When the bud begins to show its color she sends out word to all her neighbors to be ready. And we are all ready. For days, in the back of our minds as we go about our dull, routine life, there is the thought that the cereus is near to bloom. Nelly and her grim husband hang over it day by day, watching it slowly prepare for its hour of glory. Sometimes when they cannot decide just the time it will open, they sit up all through a long night, hour after hour of darkness and silence, to make sure that it does not bloom unseen. When they see that it is about to open, they fling open their doors, wishing above everything else to share that beauty with their fellows. Their children are sent to announce, as you heard Touclé say tonight, 'The cereus is going to bloom.' And all up and down this end of the valley, in those ugly little wooden houses that look so mean and dreary to you, everywhere people tired from their day's struggle with the earth, rise up and go their pilgrimage through the night . . . for what? To see something rare and beautiful."
She stopped speaking. On one side of her she heard the voice of the older man say with a quiver, "Well, I can understand why your neighbors love you."
With entire unexpectedness Marsh answered fiercely from the other side, "They don't love her! They're not capable of it!"
Marise started, as though a charged electric wire had fallen across her arm. Why was there so often a note of anger in his voice?
For a moment they advanced silently, pacing forward, side by side, unseen but not unfelt by each of the others.
The road turned now and they were before the little house, every window alight, the great pine somber and high before it. The children and Touclé were waiting at the door. They all went in together, shaking hands with the mistress of the house, neatly dressed, with a clean, white flounced apron. "Nelly's garment of ceremony!" thought Marise.
Nelly acknowledged, with a graceful, silent inclination of her shining blonde head, the presence of the two strangers whom Marise presented to her. What an inscrutable fascination Nelly's silence gave to her! You never knew what strange thoughts were going on behind that proud taciturnity. She showed the guests to chairs, of which a great many, mostly already filled, stood about the center table, on which sprawled the great, spiny, unlovely plant. Marise sat down, taking little Mark on her knees. Elly leaned against her. Paul sat close beside old Mr. Welles. Their eyes were on the big pink bud enthroned in the uncomeliness of the shapeless leafpads.
"Oh!" said Elly, under her breath, "it's not open yet! We're going to see it open, this time!" She stared at it, her lips parted. Her mother looked at her, tenderly aware that the child was storing away an impression to last her life long. Dear, strangely compounded little Elly, with her mysticism, and her greediness and her love of beauty all jumbled together! A neighbor leaned from her chair to say to Mrs. Crittenden, "Warm for this time of year, ain't it?" And another remarked, looking at Mark's little trousers, "That material come out real good, didn't it? I made up what I got of it, into a dress for Pearl." They both spoke in low tones, but constrained or sepulchral, for they smiled and nodded as though they had meant something else and deeper than what they had said. They looked with a kindly expression for moment at the Crittenden children and then turned back to their gaze on the flower-bud.