They drifted quickly by on the current, and like the vision of a moment the banquet vanished from their sight. They passed the brightly lighted windows of the castle kitchen and offices, where servants flitted to and fro like ministering spirits, and glided again into silence and darkness. To their right, at the back of the house with its countless windows, was a grass plot bordered with old statues and ivy-draped urns; on their left everything was plunged in shadow. Here was an avenue of century-old limes running along the bank of the stream, every ray of light extinguished in its dark depths.
Maybe somewhere near here stood the marble head they longed to find. Lilly's eyes searched every corner furtively, as if she scrupled to deprive him of the joy of discovery.
The arched bridge, which they had admired earlier in the day, now gleamed at them again out of the dusk. It evidently did not lead to Walhalla, but to an islet of spiræa and hemp bushes, under the branches of which a pair of swans were roosting. At the sound of the oars they awoke, and with flapping wings pursued the boat, opening their beaks for bread.
"Swans! the one touch that was wanted to make everything perfect!" Lilly exclaimed jubilantly. "I wish I had some crumbs to give them."
She turned her head to look after the swans, and her neck rested against his knees.
"May I stay like this?" she asked a little nervously.
"Yes, if it's comfortable," he answered; and there was a caressing yielding in his tone that sent a warm glow through her limbs.
She took off her hat, not to crush it, and laid it on the seat in the stern. Now her head was free to lean too against him lightly, and in sweet anxiety she felt his hand rest for a moment tenderly on her hair. Yet he was silent and preoccupied, as if some burden were weighing on his mind, which he could not throw off. And again she felt as she had often felt before, as if a veil hung between him and herself--a veil that seldom lifted, and obscured from her the true characteristics of his nature, much as she clung to him in loving intimacy.
Oh, if only he would be merry!
The park came to an end, and the red after-glow, no longer hidden by walls of foliage, flamed in full glory over them. The spell threatened to be broken. The world of magic became almost ordinary.