“Let us walk about for a few minutes,” said he; “to-morrow I shall call upon your parents. I will request them to see me some time in the morning. That is a settled question, is it not?”
She nodded with her calm, sweet smile.
After having made a couple of turns around the inner gallery the two lovers found themselves at one of the doors which opened upon the pandoppo, where the illumination was equally bright. Several couples—groups of young girls—also were passing through the pandoppo to get to the garden of the Residence, there to enjoy for a while the freshness and coolness of the pleasant night. Anna and Charles followed the others somewhat mechanically; and soon found themselves among the ornamental shrubberies and bushes which the tropical sun brings forth in such abundance. Between these the pathways, laid down in the style of an English park, meandered gracefully and fantastically as the inspiration of some skilful artist.
“I fancy I saw Matilda Meidema and a couple of my friends yonder just now,” said Anna, “down there in the Salak-lane. She has something to tell me. I shall be with you again directly.”
Was it natural modesty? Was it a kind of dread of being alone for the first time with him whom she loved, and to whom she had just now spoken her faithful and trustful “yes?” Was it perhaps womanly curiosity which impelled her to go and hear what secret her friend had to communicate, and a burning anxiety also to pour into her ear the great secret of her own happiness? Perhaps so. At all events, she was about to speed away, but van Nerekool prevented her with gentle violence as he pressed to his heart the hand which lay on his arm.
“There will be time enough presently, dearest love,” murmured he in a whisper, as if he feared some one in the garden might catch up his words; “there will be time enough presently to hear what Matilda has to tell you. This hour is mine.”
CHAPTER XI.
A GARDEN SCENE.
Meanwhile, the moon had risen high in the heavens. Through the lofty tree-tops, her beams formed the most curiously shaped and fantastic silhouettes, which, under the influence of the cool night-breeze, seemed to drive one another up and down in endless chase along the bright yellow paths, and the velvety lawns. Here and there, the moonlight fell through groups of Tjemara trees, which, with their long needle-like foliage, greatly resemble our larches, and thus had, as it were, to pass through a network of the finest lace. Nothing could be more weird, and, to a poetic eye, more pleasing, than these strange patches of sifted light, which cast no shadows, and offered so great a contrast to the calm white radiance around, that they looked like the mysterious rings in which elves and fairies hold their nightly revels.