"Ah, then you don't understand my worship! In Ireland, nature condemns us to a long, black, wet winter and a long, gray, wet spring, so that the heart of a man is nearly drowned in his body, and he grows to believe that his country is nothing but a neutral-tinted waste; but one day, when even hope is dying, a miracle comes to pass—the sun shines out! The sun shines out, and he suddenly sees that his waste land is the color of emeralds and that his dripping woods are gardens, tinted like no stones that jewellers ever handle. Oh, no wonder I am a sun-worshipper!"
Maxine, glowing to his sudden enthusiasm, clasped her hands, as when she heard the music of M. Cartel.
"Ah, and that is your country?"
"That is my country, princess."
"I wish——" She stopped.
"That you could see it?"
She nodded.
"And why not? Why not—when this boy sees reason? How I would love to show it to you! You would understand."
"When would you show it to me?" She spoke very low.
"When? Oh, perhaps in April—April, when the washed skies are a blue that even Max could not find in his color-box, and the bare boughs tremble with promise. In April—or, better still, in the autumn. In October, when the lights are cool and white and the sea is an opal; when you smell the ozone strong as violets, and at every turn of the road a cart confronts you, heaped with bronze seaweed and stuck with a couple of pikes that rise stark against the sky-line, to suggest the taking of the spoils. Yes, in October! In October, it should be!"