She went walking along, gravely inspecting her sweet peas, bending over them to inhale their perfume, to touch with a delicate finger their exquisite petals. They had done very well; she was proud of them. People passing along the street stopped to look at them in their incredible variety; a great bloom of colour against the high board fence, faint pink, pale yellow, lavender, rose, a strange, deep purple brown; they looked like little winged things, alighting for the moment on the fragile vines.
She came to the end of the row and turned the corner to the bed where the verbenas stood, and beside them a turbulent little sea of petunias, closely massed. The smell of the moist earth, of the grass freshly cut, of all the little flowers she had planted and tended, came to her on a tiny breeze, and a limitless joy filled her. Never before in her life had she felt so happy, so tranquil, so strong. Her glance embraced the smooth lawn stretching to the gravel drive that encircled the house, and the flower beds against the walls, filled with nasturtiums, thickly bordered with sweet alyssum, drenched in the sun, hot, fragrant, valiant little things. She was one with all of this, with no more purpose than they had.
Alfred’s words had filled her with actual bliss. She might be a ghost, but she was no more frustrate than that sweet pea that had swung loose from the string upon which it should have climbed, and swayed in the breeze, holding by nothing. She was an unlit lamp, but by the blaze of the sun, who needed her little flame? The world wanted nothing from her, and she had nothing to give. The turmoil of the night before was gone, her little effort ended.
She saw Gilbert coming up the hill; he looked hot and cross, with his straw hat pushed back on his head, and the box of chocolates under his arm. But now his crossness didn’t seem to her alien and alarming; he was nothing but Gilbert, a familiar mystery. There was no need to understand him, no need for any excessive interest in him. She wasn’t required to explain herself to him, or him to herself. She believed that she could never again be repelled by any strangeness in him, or disturbed by what he did. Her soul felt relieved of all its burdens, light, almost gay. He was one person, and she was another; they couldn’t gravely affect each other, they were not inter-dependent; they were allied, but it was an alliance only for their interest, not to hurt or to hamper them. She went out to meet him, with a friendly smile she led him up on the veranda and left him there while she made an artful mint julep. Her friendliness didn’t depend upon his being friendly; it was her own independent emotion. But it provoked an instant response from him.
“What’s come over you?” he asked, curiously. “You haven’t been like this for I don’t know how long.”
“Perhaps it’s this dear garden,” she answered, vaguely.
“You’d better stay in it, then,” he said, with, a sulky smile. “It agrees with you.”
“That’s what I’d like to do. Won’t you come down here for the rest of the summer, Gilbert? It’s very cool and quiet.”
“I might,” he answered, to her surprise.
The sun had gone down and a cheerful dusk had fallen, lively with the chirping of insects. They talked carelessly, of the small things that interested them; he too grew affable, almost tranquil. Astonishing how little he wanted! Not to be charmed, not to be comprehended, only to be accepted, casually and kindly, just as he was.