"You're a happy foreigner!" he finished. "Did you know? Dormans called you that after the first dance. He said to me: 'I wonder if they are all so happy in England! I must go and see.'"
"You too, you too!" she said, eagerly, and she wanted him to admit it. "See how happy, how busy, how full of the affairs of life you soon will be! Difficulties of every sort, and hard work and triumph—"
"And you'll see, you'll see, I'll do it," he said, catching fire again. "I'll grow rich on these bony mountains—it isn't only the riches, mind you, but they are the proof—I'll wring it out in triumph, not in water, but in gold—from the rock!"
He stood at the edge of the path, a little above her, blotting out the sky with his darker shape, then turning, kissed her.
"For the little time!" he said, and disappeared.
The noise of his footsteps descended in the night below. Ten minutes passed, and as each step trod innocently away from her for ever she continued motionless and silent to listen from her rock. The noises all but faded, yet, loth to put an end to the soft rustle, she listened while it grew fainter and less human to her ear, till it mingled at last with the rustle of nature, with the whine of the wind and the pit-pat of a little creature close at hand.
She stirred at last, and turned; and found herself alone with that flock of enormous companions, the hog-backed mountains, like cattle feeding about her. Above, uniting craggy horn to horn, was an architrave of stars.
"Good-bye"—to the light in the valley, and starting the car she began the descent on Charleville. There are moments when the roll of the world is perceptible to the extravagant senses. There are moments when the glamour of man thins away into oblivion before the magic of night, when his face fades and his voice is silenced before that wind of excited perception that blows out of nowhere to shake the soul.
In such a mood, in such a giddy hour, seated in person upon her car, in spirit upon her imagination, Fanny rode down the mountain into the night.
She was invincible, inattentive to the voice of absent man, a hard, hollow goddess, a flute for the piping of heaven—composing and chanting unmusical songs, her inner ear fastened upon another melody. And heaven, protecting a creature at that moment so estranged from earth, led her down the wild road, held back the threatening forest branches, brought her, all but standing up at the wheel like a lunatic, safely to the foot of the last hill.