XXV
THE LAST ENCHANTMENT
The tallest eucalyptus top was all of the garden that was touched with sun when Flora came out of the house in the morning. She stood a space looking at that little cone of brightness far above all the other trees, swaying on the delicate sky. It was not higher lifted nor brighter burnished than her spirit then. Shorn of her locket chain, her golden pouch, free of her fears, she poised looking over the garden. Then with a leap she went from the veranda to the grass and, regardless of dew, skimmed the lawn for the fountain and the rose garden.
There she saw him—the one man—already awaiting her. He stood back to back with a mossy nymph languishing on her pedestal, and Flora hoped by running softly to steal up behind him, and make of the helpless marble lady a buffer between their greetings. But either she underestimated the nymph's bulk, or forgot how invariably direct was the man's attack; for turning and seeing her, without any circumvention, with one sweep of his long arm, he included the statue in his grasp of her. With a laugh of triumph he drew her out of her concealment.
To her the splendor of skies and trees and morning light melted into that wonderful moment. For the first time in weary days she had all to give, nothing to fear or withhold. She was at peace. She was ready to stop, to stand here in her life for always—here in the glowing garden with him, and their youth. But he was impatient. He did not want to loiter in the morning. He was hot to hurry on out of the present which was so mysterious, so untried to her, as if these ecstasies had no mystery to him but their complete fulfilment. He filled her with a trembling premonition of the undreamed-of things that were waiting for her in the long aisle of life.
"Come, speak," he urged, as they paced around the fountain. "When am I to take you away?"
She hung back in fear of her very eagerness to go, to plunge head over ears into life in a strange country with a stranger. "Next month," she ventured.
"Next month! why not next week? why not to-morrow?" he declared with confidence. "Who is to say no? I am the head of my house and you have no one but me. To be sure, there is Mrs. Herrick—excellent woman. But she has her own daughters to look out for, and," he added slyly, "much as she thinks of you, I doubt if she thinks you a good example for them. As for that other, as for the paid woman—"
"Oh, hush, hush!" Flora cried, hurt with a certain hardness in his voice; "I don't want to see her. I shall never go near her! And Harry—"