She rose, and there was an instant whir of fluttering wings.
"Shall we walk?" she said to Anthony. She shook her frock, to dust the last grains of birdseed from it. "If we stay here, they will think there is more to come. And they 've had quite sufficient for one day."
She put up her sunshade, and they turned back into the alley of hortensias.
"You find me speechless," said Anthony. "Of course, it has n't really happened. But how—how do you produce so strong an illusion of reality? I could have sworn I saw a greenfinch feeding from your hand, I could have sworn I saw him cling there, and heard him sing his song. I could have sworn I saw you kiss him."
Susanna, under her white sunshade, laughed, softly, victoriously.
"Speaking with all moderation," he declared, "it is the most marvellous performance I have ever witnessed. If it had been a sparrow—or a pigeon—but—a greenfinch—!"
"There are very few birds that can't be tamed," she said. "You 've only got to familiarise them with your presence at a certain spot at a certain hour, and keep very still, and be very, very gentle in your movements, and croon to them, and bring them food. I have tamed wilder birds than greenfinches, in Italy—I have tamed goldfinches, blackcaps, and even an oriole. And if you have once tamed a bird, and made him your friend, he never forgets you. Season after season, when he returns from his migration, he recognises you, and takes up the friendship where it was put down. Until at last"—her voice sank, and she shook her head—"there comes a season when he returns no more."
They had strolled beyond the hortensias, into a shady avenue of elms. Round the trunk of one of these ran a circular bench. Susanna sat down. Anthony stood before her.
"I trust, at any rate," she said, whimsically smiling, "that the moral of my little exhibition has not been lost upon you?"
"A moral? Oh?" said he. "No. I had supposed it was beauty for beauty's sake."