“Wie schön.” Miriam was startled by the gay sound of her own voice. It sounded as if she were alone, speaking to herself. She looked up at the spangled sky. The freshening air streamed towards them from the meadows.
“We must go back,” she said easily, turning in again under the trees.
The limes seemed heavily scented after their breath of the open. They strolled dreamily along keeping step with each other. They would make it a long quiet way to the gate. Miriam felt strangely invisible. It was as if in a moment a voice would come from the clustering lime trees or from the cluster of stars in the imagined sky.
“Wie süss,” murmured Max, “ist treue Liebe.”
“How dear,” she translated mentally, “is true love.” Yes, that was it, that was true, the German phrase. Ted was dear, dear. But so far away. Coming and going, far away.
“Is it?” she said with a vague, sweet intonation, to hear more.
“Wie süss, wie süss,” he repeated firmly, flinging his arm across her shoulders.
The wildly shimmering leafage rustled and seemed to sing. She walked on horrified, cradled, her elbow resting in her companion’s hand as in a cup. She laughed, and her laughter mingled with the subdued lilting of the voice close at her side. Ted was waiting somewhere in the night for her. Ted. Ted. Not this stranger. But why was he not bold like this? Primly and gently she disengaged herself.
She and Ted would walk along through the darkness and it would shout to them. Day-time colours seemed to be shining through the night.... She turned abruptly to her companion.
“Aren’t the lime trees jolly?” she said conversationally.