Sunset lay on Margot’s garden. The paths still shimmered with the day’s heat, though the lax grass lifted in the shadows. Nameless perfumes wandered among the drowsily-bending flowers; the odor of warm boxwood rose from the hedge. The hedge stood black against the sky; in its glistening, fragrant deeps small birds moved swiftly to and fro in curious agitation.
Gabrielle, puzzling upon life’s unanswered riddle, stood listening to sounds beyond the hedge. Everywhere was the patter of hurrying feet, and the whisper of wordless laughter, mockingly borne on the evening wind. The air was full of the golden vision of light-footed maidens with fluttering garments, flying through Lilac lane, pursued by ardent and breathless lovers, eagerly following where they fled. The sound of laughter floated back along the narrow way, and the little faint echo of flying feet. It was that time of the year when all maids are sweet as freshly gathered flowers, and all men are a little mad. Even the earth, drab clod, was astir with the ecstasy of approaching night.
Beneath the broad-boughed magnolia grew a pomegranate-tree whose branches shrouded the greater tree’s bole. The scarlet pomegranate flowers hung over Gabrielle; the green leaves folded her in. Faint color came fitfully over her cheek; her eyes roamed restlessly through the garden, but found no solace there. As she stood thus, brooding on life’s inexplicable theme, she was aware of a sudden shadow which fell on the grass beside her, and turned in voiceless terror.
There was a face in the green hedge, smiling, two butterflies hovering over it,—a lad’s face, laughing and debonair, with yellow hair curling around it like crisp little golden flames; his cheeks were as ruddy and smooth as a child’s; his eyes were blue as the morning, swift and bright; the leaves stirred all around him as if to the beat of wings; there was confidence in his bearing, easy lordship and high pride.
Gabrielle, startled and terrified, shrank back against the magnolia’s black bole, one trembling, hesitant hand extended in doubt. Speechless she stared at that bright, boyish face with its nimbus of sunlit, yellow hair, until her dry eyes gushed tears, dimming her sight,—stared in wonder and adoration.
His eyes were audaciously bright as wild stars, incessantly roving, and alight with golden fire. He was tall, well-set and slender, with a beautiful, straight body; there was something godlike in his air as he leaned through the matted hedge, eagerly scanning her,—her pale rose cheeks, snowy gown, moth-green kerchief, her lips, her neck matching the ivory of the blossoms in her hair,—half-veiled by a screen of leafy green, dull gold and pomegranate flowers.
She had bound her hair with a bit of gold braid which shone like an aureole round her brow, and in it had thrust two butterfly lilies, whiter than ivory; her eyes were wide open, round and unwinking, their frightened depths full of tears; her lips had fallen slightly apart to free her fluttering breath; she sighed, a little, shuddering sigh, and crossed her hands upon her breast. Her beauty startled him: delicate-frail, almost translucent in the golden sun, she seemed a being not of flesh and gross mortality, but a spirit by enchantment made visible, a dryad out of the ancient wood, a maiden saint stepped out of a missal or fled from a chapel window, with a halo around her brow. With her head poised like a flower; her little, perfect hands and feet; her ankles slim and beautiful; each line aristocratic; everything proclaiming patrician blood; nothing asserting a baser thing: saint, maid, dryad, nymph, or sprite, who could tell which?
Silently drinking her loveliness he leaned through the hedge. Among the fire-colored flowers and green, her color was exquisite as the violet sky is, seen through yellow leaves.
Again she sighed softly; stared at his face, and shivered a little. Was it a god or a man in the hedge? Had he sprouted out of the boxwood, or fallen from the clouds?