“David, we will go to Florence together, in the fall, if we can tear ourselves away from our new house, and you shall copy little Dizianis and Guardis!”
“Ah, Gabrielle, don’t, my dear. I can’t—I can’t believe it. It seems too much.”
“But we’ll come back for a housewarming at Christmas time, David, and not miss one instant of the spring!”
“Yes, my darling,” David said.
“And we’ll have days in the city, David, buying towels and muffin rings,” the girl said, rejoicingly. “And then you’ll have an exhibition in April, and won’t you be proud of your nice furry wife, walking about among the pictures and listening to what people say!”
“I can hardly be prouder of her than I have always been, Gay.”
Silence. Her right hand was upon his shoulder, and his arm was strong and warm about her. David had only to bend his head to kiss the crown of her tawny, uncovered hair; the whole gracious, fragrant woman was in his arms. Their left hands, clasped, rested upon the dial.
So resting, they obscured the blackened old face that had serenely marked the hours under thin Scotch suns, under more than a hundred passionate years of the hotter suns of the New World. They hid the old legend:
Turn, Flemynge, spin agayne,
The crossit line’s the kenter skein.