'What would be the good? … If we had, he would have caught others.'
'I suppose so. But I don't like the idea of that beautiful snake, which you compared to me, being vivisected.'
The forest now extended like a great temple, hushed in the beautiful ritual of the sunset. The light that suffused the green leaves overhead glossed the brown leaves underfoot, marking the smooth grosund as with a pattern. And, like chapels, every dell seemed in the tranquil light, and leading from them a labyrinthine architecture without design or end. Mildred's eyes wandered from the colonnades to the underwoods. She thought of the forest as of a great green prison; and then her soul fled to the scraps of blue that appeared through the thick leafage, and she longed for large spaces of sky, for a view of a plain, for a pine-plumed hill-top. Once more she admired, once more she wearied of the forest aisles, and was about to suggest returning to Barbizon when Morton said:
'We are nearly there now; I'm going to show you our lake.'
'A lake! Is there a lake?'
'Yes, there's a lake—not a very large one, it is true, but still a lake—on the top of a hill where you can see the forest. Under a sunset sky the view is magnificent.'
The carriage was to wait for them, and, a little excited by the adventure, Mildred followed Morton through rocks and furze bushes. When it was possible she took his arm, and once accidentally, or nearly accidentally, she sprang from a rock into his arms. She was surprised that he did not take advantage of the occasion to kiss her.
'Standing on this flat rock we're like figures in a landscape, by
Wilson,' Mildred said.
'So we are,' said Morton, who was struck by the truth of the comparison. 'But there is too much colour in the scene for Wilson—he would have reduced it all to a beautiful blue, with only a yellow flush to tell where the sun had gone.'
'It would be very nice if you would make me a sketch of the lake. I'll lend you a lead pencil, the back of an envelope will do.'