Not a thing stirred. In the gallery the Ten Little Ladies grew wan and faded before the vitality of the daylight; and when, after some difficulty, Toni unlocked the big hall door and let in a flood of sunshine, they gave up the unequal contest and expired quietly.
Ah! What a world of beauty burst upon Toni's gaze as she stood, thrilling delightfully with a sense of adventure, on the big stone steps outside the great door.
A rush of perfume from the tall lilies greeted her first; followed by a perfect shower of fragrance from the pink and creamy roses growing beside the door. Other scents there were—a dozen of them—from the flowers massed in glowing ranks in the beds; but the lilies and the roses had it all their own way; and Toni laughed with delight as they assailed her with their sweetness.
There was music, too, in this pearly dawn. In the trees the birds were astir, twittering their songs of morning; and already the velvety brown bees were beginning to hum their spinning chorus as they hovered here and there among the tall flowers which stood in rows before the windows, like marriageable maidens waiting for inspection.
Beyond the terrace lay the river, shining with that strange, ethereal effect of silver which water has beneath the early morning sky; and away beyond the river the thin, delicate mists of the night were rising like vaporous ghosts, to dissolve in the fresh, clean atmosphere of dawn.
"Oh, how beautiful it all is! What a lovely world God made when He made—this!" Toni stood on the steps with arms outstretched, like some young priestess of a pagan faith welcoming the sun. "And why do we lie asleep in stuffy beds when all the birds and flowers have been awake for ages!"
She pulled the big door gently to behind her, and then ran through the gardens and across the terrace to the big grey balustrade which kept the boundary of the garden from the towing path beyond. Leaning her arms on the stone she looked out over the shining river, and in fancy her spirit roved here and there—to the violet-strewn mountain slopes of Italy where she had passed her childhood ... to the wonderful, rocky coast of Cornwall where her honeymoon had been spent.
At the thought of the Cornish seas she caught her breath. Those marvellous green billows, foaming in the sunshine, dashing against the cliffs with a sound like thunder; the gentler wavelets creaming over the snow-white sands in lines of lotus-blue; the pools, deep and limpid, where in the aquamarine water all kind of strange sea-creatures lived; the jagged, tooth-like rocks springing from the depths of the ocean, ready to destroy the passing ships; the still more wonderful lighthouses, rising, some of them, like tall white needles into the turquoise sky; the gulls, flashing grey and white in the sunshine; the salt scent of the sea mingling with the pungent fragrance of the yellow gorse, hot with the sun ... surely the Cornish coast was a very favoured spot, and the Scilly Isles, to which passage could be taken in a queer, cranky boat, were indeed the Fortunate Isles, cradled by the bluest, most magical, most romantic waters in the world!
Thoughts of the ocean were indissolubly bound up with all Toni's thoughts of her honeymoon. Acting on a hint from Barry, Owen had taken his bride straight away from the Registrar's dingy office to Paddington, thence to Cornwall; and he would never forget the sight of Toni's face when first she saw the sea, lying purple and green beneath a stormy sky.
During the long journey she had said very little, shyness enveloping her as in a mantle; but when the train began to run along the sea shore, so that the whole expanse of ocean lay spread before the window, Toni's face changed, her eyes sparkled, and she turned to Owen with a spontaneous expression of delight.