Presently they came to a side allée, and after going up it about a mile the automobile stopped, and they got out and walked down a green glade to the right.
Oh, and I wonder if any of you who read know the Forest of Marly, and this one green glade that leads down to the centre of a star where five avenues meet? It is all soft grass and splendid trees, and may have been a rendezvous de chasse in the good old days, when life—for the great—was fair in France.
It is very lonely now, and if you want to spend some hours in peace you can almost count upon solitude there.
"Now, is not this beautiful?" he asked her, as they neared the centre, "and soon you will see why I carry this rug over my arm. I am going to take you right to the middle of the star until you see five paths for you to choose from, all green and full of glancing sunlight, and when you have selected one we will penetrate down it and sit under a tree. Is it good—my idea?"
"Very good," said Theodora. Then she was silent until they reached the rond-point.
There was that wonderful sense of aloofness and silence—hardly even the noise of a bird. Only the green, green trees, and here and there a shaft of sunlight turning them into the shade of a lizard's back.
An ideal spot for—poets and dreamers—and lovers—Theodora thought.
"Now we are here! Look this way and that! Five paths for us to choose from!"
Then something made Theodora say, "Oh, let us stay in the centre, in this one round place, where we can see them all and their possibilities."
"And do you think uncertain possibilities are more agreeable perhaps than certain ends?" he asked.