A great dragon-fly, a flash of blue, had dropped on to the surface of the pool, and lay floating. As they watched it rose, to drop again upon a small stone amid a shallow current; half in, half out of, the sunny water, it basked.
"Oh, how lovely everything is!" exclaimed Irene, in a voice that quivered low. "How perfect a day!"
"It was weather like this when I first saw you," said Piers. "Earlier, but just as bright. My memory of you has always lived in sunshine. I saw you first from my window; you were standing in the garden at Ewell; I heard your voice. Do you remember telling the story of Thibaut Rossignol?"
"Oh yes, yes!"
"Is he still with your father?"
"Thibaut? Why, Thibaut is an institution. I can't imagine our house without him. Do you know that he always calls me Mademoiselle Irene?"
"Your name is beautiful in any language. I wonder how many times I have repeated it to myself? And thought, too, so often of its meaning; longed, for that—and how vainly!"
"Say the name—now," she faltered.
"Irene!—Irene!"
"Why, you make music of it! I never knew how musical it sounded. Hush! look at that thing of light and air!"