Into Claudia's face color sprang quickly, and for a moment she drew back. "Oh no! It is too beautiful to-day to make plans of any kind. It is enough to just—live. You haven't seen half of Elmwood yet, and you want to talk of—other things."
"I certainly do." Laine stepped back that Claudia might lead the way down the path, box-bordered so high that those within could not be seen outside, and smiled in the protesting face. A few moments more and they had come out to the front lawn on the left of the house and some distance below the terrace on which it overlooked the river, and as they reached a group of spreading magnolias he drew in his breath.
"I do not wonder that you love it. And I am asking you to leave it!"
She looked up. "Come, I want to show you some of the old things, the dear things, and then—"
"We will come back, and you will tell me what I must know, Claudia?"
She nodded and pulled the bells from the lily-of-the-valley she held in her hands. "We will come back and—I will tell you."
For an hour, in the soft glow of the sun now, sinking in the heavens, they wandered through the grounds and separate gardens of the old estate, now walking the length of the long avenue, shaded by great elms of more than century age, now around the lawn with its beds of bleeding-hearts and snowdrops, of wall-flowers and sweet-William, of hyacinths and tulips, with their borders of violets and cowslips, of candytuft and verbenas, and at the old sun-dial they stopped and read the hour. Picking an armful of lilacs and calicanthus and snowballs and blue flags, planted in the days when the great trees were tiny saplings, they sent them in by Gabriel, who was following at a distance, blowing softly on his trumpet, and for some minutes stood in front of the house and watched the sun touch, here and there, the old brick laid in Flemish bond; then went back and sat down on the low seat under the big magnolia, from which the river could be glimpsed, and over which every now and then a white sail could be seen.
Behind them the sun sank. The mass of shifting gold and blue and crimson and pale purple lost little by little its brilliant splendor, and slowly over land and sky soft twilight fell, and only here and there was heard the song and twitter of birds as they made ready for the night.
For a few moments there was silence, and then in his Laine held the hands of Claudia.
"It is a wonder world, this old, old world of yours with its many things we have forgotten. And yet—you will come to me? You are sure at last, Claudia?"