“I’ll only sing one,” she answered, with a little air of wilfulness.
“Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
The Little Good Folk the spell they have cast;
By your work well done while the moon hath shone,
Ye shall cleave unto joy at last—
Gigoton Mergaton, spin!”
As she sang the last verse she seemed in a dream, and her rich voice, rising with the spirit of the concluding lines, poured out the notes like a bird drunk with the air of spring.
“Guida,” he cried, springing to his feet, “when you sing like that it seems to me I live in a world that has nothing to do with the sordid business of life, with my dull trade—with getting the weather-gauge or sailing in triple line. You’re a planet all by yourself, Mistress Guida! Are you ready to come into the garden?”
“Yes, yes, in a minute,” she answered. “You go out to the big apple-tree, and I’ll come in a minute.” The apple-tree was in the farthest corner of the large garden. Near it was the summer-house where Guida and her mother used to sit and read, Guida on the three-legged stool, her mother on the low, wide seat covered with ferns. This spot Guida used to “flourish” with flowers. The vines, too, crept through the rough latticework, and all together made the place a bower, secluded and serene. The water of the little stream outside the hedge made music too.
Philip placed himself on the bench beneath the appletree. What a change was all this, he thought to himself, from the staring hot stones of Malta, the squalor of Constantinople, the frigid cliffs of Spitzbergen, the noisome tropical forests of the Indies! This was Arcady. It was peace, it was content. His life was sure to be varied and perhaps stormy—here would be the true change, the spirit of all this. Of course he would have two sides to his life like most men: that lived before the world, and that of the home. He would have the fight for fame. He would have to use, not duplicity, but diplomacy, to play a kind of game; but this other side to his life, the side of love and home, should be simple, direct—all genuine and strong and true. In this way he would have a wonderful career.
He heard Guida’s footstep now, and standing up he parted the apple boughs for her entrance. She was dressed all in white, without a touch of colour save in the wild rose at her throat and the pretty red shoes with the broad buckles which the Chevalier had given her. Her face, too, had colour—the soft, warm tint of the peach-blossom—and her auburn hair was like an aureole.
Philip’s eyes gleamed. He stretched out both his hands in greeting and tenderness. “Guida—sweetheart!” he said.
She laughed up at him mischievously, and put her hands behind her back.
“Ma fe, you are so very forward,” she said, seating herself on the bench. “And you must not call me Guida, and you’ve no right to call me sweetheart.”