"How sweetly the tobacco plant smells!" she said.
"Yes, doesn't it? But what is the meaning of our story? My finding you at Dulwich—Evelyn, have you ever thought enough about it? How extraordinary that event was, extraordinary as the stars above us; my going down that evening and hearing you sing? Do you remember the look with which you greeted me—do you remember that cup of tea?"
"It was coffee."
"And then all our meetings in the garden under the cedar-tree?"
"You used to say we looked like a picture by Marcus Stone when we sat under it."
"Never mind what we looked like. Think of it! Of our journey to
Paris, and my visit to Brussels to hear you sing."
"And Madame Savelli, who wouldn't let me speak to you; she said I might tire my voice."
"Yes, how I hated her and Olive that day! You sang 'Elizabeth,' and when you walked up, to the sound of flutes and clarionettes,' seemingly to the stars, there was something in the way you did it that put a fear into my heart. It was all predestined from the beginning."
"So you believe, Owen, that the end is fated, and that I was created to come back after many wanderings to help these poor little crippled boys?"
"Is that the meaning of it all, Evelyn?"