And after that an almost reckless happiness was added to the peace of the roof.
Lateefa quoted Hâfiz by the yard. Auntie Khôjee got hold of Lesley's hand and held it fast with one of hers, while the other slid up and down the girl's arm with the little caressing pats and pinches with which she had tried to wile away Noormahal's weariness, and Jack Raymond sat and looked on with----
With what? Lesley did not quite realise what the expression was till they were alone together on their way back through the garden once more. Then she recollected it; for his face was all soft and kind, all lit up with a delicate raillery, a forgetfulness of the workaday world, just as it had been that evening--that evening, when another woman had been his companion--that evening when she had felt so lonely--when the cinnamon dove----
'Do-you-love-too? do-yon-love-too?' came the question from the rose-bush once more; but the bird did not fly from its shelter now. There was no thorn in the path now to make those two pause and startle it. So the question followed them. 'Do-you-love-too? do-you-love-too?' as they walked side by side, leaving the Sanctuary behind them, nearing the gilded summer-house before them.
'There's no hurry, is there?' said the man suddenly when they reached it. 'Let us sit down a bit and talk--about ourselves.'
The girl sat down, but shook her head. 'It was only for the time, Mr. Raymond,' she said, not pretending to misunderstand his meaning.
'Why should it only be for the time?'
'Why?' she echoed, looking out into the Pleasure-garden of Kings. 'For a great many reasons, I think.'
And then she began on them, one by one, dispassionately, rationally; and sometimes he agreed with her despondently as to his character and interests, and sometimes he gave in to her greater knowledge regarding her own.
And the dove cooed on its question, and the jewelled parrots--winged creatures as they were--flew from one screen of flowering trees to the other, unable to escape the thraldom of the high wall hidden by leaf and blossom--unable to escape from that prisonment of pleasure.