For a second it seemed to him that he saw a window open in the depths of her eyes. Then she turned her back on him. “I don’t live in the past,” she said. “Let us go down into the park. It will be dusk in a few moments, and the nightingales will sing.”
They lingered awhile among the terraces watching the sun go down, then descended through the Gate of Justice into the park. There the steep aisles were dim, there was the murmur of running water, and in a few moments the nightingales burst forth into song.
Over and Catalina sat down on a grassy bank. There appeared to be no one in the park but themselves. The man looked up, half expecting to see turbaned heads and flashing eyes on the towers and ramparts above; or the glittering cavalcade of Ferdinand and Isabella crowding through the Gate of Justice; or the faithless wife of Boabdil stealing out to her fatal tryst with Hammet of the Abencerrages. In the warm duskiness of the wood under the watch-towers and ramparts, and the fountain of Charles V. beside them, the music of nightingale and distant waters thrilling the soft, voluptuous air, it was easy to imagine that the walls of Granada had yielded to neither the Spaniard nor to time. They were the most romantic moments he had ever known; and the Alhambra is the most romantic ruin on earth, the one where the modern world seems but a bit of prophetic history, and 400 years are as naught.
But there came a moment when he retraced his flight and stole a glance at Catalina. If she were as thrilled with the sense of his nearness as he with hers in these glades of teeming memories, she gave no sign. With her head thrown back and eyes half closed she appeared to be drinking in the delicious notes of the nightingales. She was quite as beautiful as any of the captive sultanas who had whiled away the hours for their fierce lords in the mysterious apartments above—and startlingly like. Such women, white of skin, dark and sphinxlike of eye, with delicate features and tender forms, were sought throughout the East to tempt the sated appetite of the Moorish tyrants. Just so had women with wistful, upturned profiles listened to the dulcet notes of the nightingale floating down from the trees beside Comares into the spacious courts beneath their narrow windows, dreaming of the lovers they would never see. How like she was! In looks, yes; but he laughed outright as his fancy pictured Catalina as even the reigning favorite of a harem where a mistaken monarch sought to filch her of her liberty and bend her will. His abrupt, half-conscious laughter rent the spell of the evening, and Catalina sprang to her feet.
“I forgot to ask the dinner-hour,” she said. “But it must be time. I am starved.”
She walked rapidly up the hill, and Over followed, conscious that he had thrown away one of the exquisite moments of life, and hardly knowing, now that the intoxication had passed, whether he would have it so or not.
XIX
They found the guests of the pension at dinner in the garden. There were ten or twelve people at the table, and Over and Catalina were conscious of a conspicuous entrance; and a certain familiar lighting of the eye in those facing the door heralded them as a distinguished young couple on their honeymoon. Catalina, whose spirits had ebbed far out, frowned and took the vacant chair beside Mrs. Rothe, that at least she might not be obliged to talk to a man, and Over sat himself beside the husband. In a moment Catalina saw her mistake; there was but one person between her cavalier and the blonde young woman who had inspired her with distrust.
The American girl sat at the head of the table with the air of a hostess entertaining her guests. She was perhaps twenty-six, but she had the aplomb of a woman who not only has been a gracious hostess for many years, but has exacted and received much tribute. She wore a thin black gown which became her fairness marvellously well, and had dressed her smooth, ashen hair both high and low. Her long back was straight without effort, and if her shoulders were a shade too broad her waist and hips were less mature. Everybody else looked dowdy in comparison, even Mrs. Rothe suffering an eclipse.