"Is that Plas Afon? I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Aura, as a swift turn in the road brought them to a sheltered bay almost land-locked by a rocky promontory covered with trees. It needed but one glance at these to show you that here was art, not nature. But it was art mimicking Nature in her kindest moods and bringing together from the four corners of the earth the glories of eastern and western forests, of the south and of the north. A few gold leaves still lingered on the Spanish chestnuts, the blue of the noble pine formed a background for the golden-barked willow, the silver cedar threw out its long arms across a scarlet oak, and almost to the water's edge grew rare conifers and blossoming shrubs.
"I believe you are afraid! I am," said Ned, steering for the portico.
"Who's afraid?" laughed Ted from the back seat, his eyes on the girl. "Not you or I, I'll bet. We sit free of this sort of thing. Keep your responsibilities to yourself, Ned!"
Once more Aura looked back at him and smiled brilliantly. She was not afraid, but she felt oppressed. Yet how lovely it was! A velvet lawn sloping away to the sea. Those unknown beautiful trees, each standing sentinel over a portion of God's earth, and in the sheltered nooks groups of tall grasses and hardy palms. Not a dead leaf, every tuft of herbage in its right place. And the gravel! Aura had never dreamt of such gravel before! Each pebble round--polished, glowing, half-translucent in the sunshine, like an uncut gem. She felt she could scarcely dare to walk upon the pretty things.
And it was a beautiful house too; a real fairy palace. Yes! it was like a dream--a dream of great, of exceeding beauty. There was not a discordant note in it. The man of whom Ned had told her, who had built it, who had lavished a fortune on it, and had then died in faraway Italy, leaving it to fall into the hands of Philistines, must have had----. What must he have had! Ah! well, he must have been rather like Ned Blackborough himself. For Plas Afon fitted Ned somehow in its fineness, its elusiveness.
She turned her eyes to him, and flushed; for his were on hers, thinking how Plas Afon fitted her. And in truth it did; fitted her all the more for the flush, since she held her head higher, and followed him with a still lighter, freer step.
"I am so glad," said Helen Tressilian coming forward. "This is Miss Vyvyan; Aunt Em--this is Miss Aura Graham."
"Delighted, I'm sure," murmured a tall, stately, absolutely colourless lady, who was engaged in making laborious needle-point on a tiny piece of black lining about two inches square. A tiny reel of almost invisible thread, a miniature pair of scissors, were also held in her left hand. They formed her only individuality; for the rest she got up at the right time, ate her breakfast and made appropriate breakfast remarks, and so lived through her day doing as the rest of the world did. But these came down with her in the morning and went to bed with her at night, held always in her white be-ringed left hand. Perhaps she slept with them. Anyhow they were an integral part of her waking life. If any one, thinking to be agreeable, asked her how she was getting on, she would smile gently, indulgently, and say that of course such work took time.
Ned used to feel that it annihilated Time altogether, and could he have happened on it unprotected, would for a certainty have annihilated it. But it went with her everywhere--even in the motor.
"Something quite terrible has happened, Ned," went on Helen Tressilian--she had given one look at Aura and been satisfied--"but it can't be helped. The Smith-Biggs have motored over from Aberaron--and--and--they have brought Mr. Hirsch. I sent Dr. Ramsay out with them to show them the garden, but--but they'll have to stop to lunch."