So Teresa and David sat on together, watching Concha and Rory glimmering down the border till they melted into the invisible view.
It was a glorious night. The lawns of the sky were dusty with the may of stars. The moon, no longer flower-like and idle, shone a cold masterpiece of metallurgy. The air was laden with the perfumes of shrubs and flowers. Teresa noticed that the perfumes did not come simultaneously, but one after another; like notes of a tune picked out with one finger—lilac, may, wallflower....
“I can smell sweetbriar!” cried David suddenly, a strange note of triumph in his voice, “it’s like a Scotch tune—‘Oh, my love is like a red red rose’!” and he laughed, a little wildly.
Teresa’s heart began to beat very fast, and seizing at random upon the first words that occurred to her, she said, “Concha’s like a red red rose,” and began to repeat mechanically:
“Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.”
“I wasn’t thinking of her ...” he said. “I wasn’t ... Oh, my love is like the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley ... it’s all the same”; and then, abruptly: “Look! There’s the moon. She’s always the same—Scotland, Africa, in the trenches, here. She’s like books—Homer and the rest—in whatever land you open them, they just say the same thing that they did a hundred years ago.”
Far away a night-express flashed and shrieked through the view; then an owl hooted.