Farther on the highroad looped around a strip of young forest, and she struck into this for a short cut. Here the trees stirred faintly in the breeze, filling the place with leafy rustlings and whisperings; yet it was so still that when a saffron-barred hornet darted through with an intolerant high-keyed hum, it made the air for an instant angrily vocal, and a woodpecker’s tattoo at some distance sounded with startling loudness, like a crackling series of pistol-shots.
In the depth of this wood she sat down to rest on the sun-splashed roots of a tree. Leaning back against the seamed trunk, her felt hat fallen to the ground, she looked like some sea-woman emerging from an earth-hued pool to comb her hair against a dappled rock. The ground was sparsely covered with gray-blue bushes whose fronds at a little distance blended into a haze till they seemed like billows of smoke suddenly solidified, and here and there a darting red or yellow flower gave the illusion of an under-tongue of flame. Her eyes, passionately eager, peered about her, drinking in each note of color as her quick ear caught each twig-fall, each sound of bird and insect.
She drew back against the tree and caught her breath as a bulldog frisked over a mossy boulder just in front of her.
A moment more and she had thrown herself on her knees with both arms outstretched. “Oh, you splendid creature!” she cried, “you big, lovely white darling!”
The dog seemed in no way averse to this sensational proceeding. He responded instantly not merely with tail-wagging; but with ecstatic grunts and growls. “Where did you come from?” she questioned, as his pink tongue struggled desperately to find a cheek through the whorl of coppery hair. “Why, you must be the one I was told not to be afraid of.”
She petted and fondled the smooth intelligent muzzle. “As if any one could be afraid of you! We’ll set your master right on that point.” Smiling to herself, she pulled one of the roses from her belt, and twisting a wisp of long grass, wound it round and round the dog’s neck and thrust the ragged rose-stem firmly through it. “Now,” she said, and pushed him gently from her, “go back, sir!”
He whined and licked her hand, but when she repeated the command, he turned obediently and left her. A little way from her he halted, with a sudden perception of mysterious punishment, shrugged, sat down, and tried to reach the irksome grass-wisp with his teeth. This failing, he rolled laboriously in the dirt.
Then he rose, cast a reproachful glance behind him, and trotted off.