Nina tossed the letter impatiently on the table, then caught it up again and re-read the last pages.
“That sounds as if it were written avec intention,” she thought. “Can papa be embarrassed? But what good could this scrubby little man do me, if he were? Most likely it is the first gun of the siege. Thank Heaven the guns must be fired through the post for a while.”
December was come, but it was still very warm. The lake was hard and still and blue. The glare was merciless.
Nina, followed by a servant bearing cushions, climbed wearily up the hill to the forest. Once or twice she paused and caught at a tree for support.
“If I ever get into the forest, I believe I’ll stay there until this weather is over,” she thought. “It has completely demoralised me.”
The servant arranged the cushions in a hammock between two pines whose arms locked high above,—a green fragrant roof the sun could not penetrate. Nina made herself comfortable, and re-read Thorpe’s last letter, received the day before. It was a very impatient letter. He wanted her, and life in the South was a bore after the novelty had worn off.
She lay thinking of him, and listening to the drowsy murmur of forest life about her. Squirrels were chattering softly, somewhere in the arbours above those slender grey pillars. A confused hum rose from the ground; from far came the roar of a torrent. She could see the blue lake with its ring of white sand, the bluer sky above, and turned her back: the sight brought heat into those cool depths. Above her rose the dim green aisles, the countless columns of the forest. She was very tired and languid. She placed Thorpe’s letter under her cheek and slept; and in her sleep she dreamed.
She was still in the forest: every lineament of it was familiar. For a time there were none of the changes of dreams. Then from the base of every pine something lifted slowly and coiled about the tree,—something long and green and horridly beautiful. It lifted itself to the very branches, then detached itself a little and waved a foot of its upper length to and fro, its glittering eyes regarding her with sleepy malice. The squirrels had hidden in their caves; not a sound came from the earth; the waters had hushed their voice. Nothing moved in that awful silence but the languid heads of the snakes.
Then came a sudden brisk step; her cousin entered. He did not notice the sleeper, but went to each constrictor in turn and stroked it lovingly. Once he caught a coil close to his breast and laughed. The small malignant eyes above moved to his, their expression changing to friendliness, albeit shot with contempt. To Nina’s agonised sense the scene lasted for hours, during which Clough fondled the reptiles with increasing ardour.
But at last the scene changed, and abruptly. She was on the mountain above the fog-ocean, close to the stars. Thorpe’s arms were strong about her. It had seemed to her in the past five months that she had never really ceased to feel the strength of his embrace, to hear the loud beating of his heart on her own. This time he withdrew one arm and, thrusting his fingers among her heartstrings, pulled them gently. Something vibrated throughout her. She had been happy before, but that soft vibration filled her with a new and inexplicable gladness. She asked him what it meant. He murmured something she could not understand, and smote the chords again. Her being seemed filled with music.