The sun shone gently and tenderly from a sky of a faint, sad, far-off blue—the sort of blue which, in the earlier and more reserved of Florentine painters, may be seen in the robes of Our Lady caught up to heaven out of a grave of lilies.
The sea was calm and motionless, its hardly stirring waves clearer and more translucent in their green depths than when blown upon by impatient winds or touched by shameless and glaring light.
A soft opalescent haze lay upon the houses, turning their gables, their chimneys, their porches, and their roofs, into a pearl-dim mystery of vague illusive forms; forms that might have arisen out of the “perilous sea” itself, on some “beachéd margent” woven of the stuff of dreams.
The queer old-fashioned ornaments of the room where the friends ate their meal took to themselves, as Nance in her dreamy emotion drew them into the circle of her thoughts, a singular and symbolic power. They seemed suggestive, these quaint things, of all that world of little casually accumulated mementoes and memories with which our troubled and turbulent humanity strews its path and fills the places of its passionate sojourning. Mother-of-pearl shells, faded antimacassars, china dogs, fruit under glass-cases, old faded photographs of long-since dead people, illuminated texts embroidered in bright wool, tarnished christening mugs of children that were now old women, portraits of celebrities from days when Victoria herself was in her cradle, all the sweet impossible bric-a-brac of a tea-parlour in a village shop surrounded them as they sat there, and thrilled at least two of their hearts—for Linda’s mood was as receptive and as sensitive as Nance’s—with an indescribable sense of the pathos of human life.
It was of “life”—in general terms—that Dr. Raughty was speaking, as the two young girls gave themselves up to the influence of the hour and played lightly with their food.
“It’s all nonsense,” the doctor cried, “this confounded perpetual pessimism! Why can’t these people read Rabelais and Montaigne, and drink noble wine out of great casks? Why can’t they choose from among the company of their friends gay and honest wenches and sport with them under pleasant trees? Why can’t they get married to comfortable and comely girls and regale themselves in cool and well-appointed kitchens?”
He helped himself as he spoke to another slice of salmon and sprinkled salt upon a plateful of tomatoes and lettuce.
“Whose pessimism are you talking about, Fingal?” inquired Nance, playing up to his humour.
“Don’t get it only for me,” Mr. Traherne cried, addressing the demure and freckled damsel who waited on them. “I’m asking for a glass of ale, Doctor. They can send out for it. But I don’t want it unless—”