They entered the gardens, and Power led Marguerite to a seat under a tree whose spreading branches, broad-leafed and flower-laden, supplied grateful shade. If he could have peered beneath that heavy veil, he would have seen that his companion was obviously ill at ease; but there was no trace of nervousness in her voice when she said, with a laugh:
“This, I suppose, is the local Garden of Eden.”
“Why?” he inquired.
“Because we are reclining under a Paradise tree.”
“I don’t see any serpents, and I cannot bring myself to regard you as either a cherub or a seraph.”
“How unkind of you! Here have I been behaving angelically all day, just because you will soon see the last of me, and that is my reward.”
“I believe the sex of angels is a matter of fierce dispute in certain circles. I wouldn’t dare form an opinion, and, just now at any rate, I am vexed by a different problem. If this tree is really the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, its influence will be helpful, because we should be moved to candor. I brought you here to ask you some questions of vital importance to myself. Are you promised to any man in marriage?”
“No. Is it likely?”
Not often did the bitter consciousness of her marred beauty rise thus bluntly to her lips; but she blurted it out now involuntarily. In this supreme moment it came as a protest against the edict of the gods. Even while she trembled in the belief that a happiness she had not dared to think of sanely was about to be vouchsafed to her, she could not restrain her terror lest the disillusionment of her scarred face might cost her the love of the one man on earth she wanted to marry. It was the heartfelt cry of a woman denied her birthright. “Male and female created he them.” The sorry trick of fate which had tarnished the fair tabernacle that enshrined so many gifts had never before exhibited its true malice. In a word, Marguerite Sinclair was a woman, and the great crisis of her life had found her unprepared and nearly hysterical.
Power, of course, was splendidly deaf to her satire and its cause.