The child jumps down the steps. I walk down gingerly, holding on to the rail; Jeannine, with her usual tact, more slowly still.
This garden is more like a park. Trees of twenty species meet here, mingled in a medley, with the luxuriance of primeval forests—palms, maples, and olives; and I am made to guess the name of magnolias and mastic trees. I admire the tangles of lichens and aloes and the "mimosa alley," running between two hedges of gold.
How sad and exquisitely sweet this loitering is. Our futile topics lend it a melancholy charm. I should like to be able to detain the fleeting moments. We are going up to the house again. I am going away—and I shall never come back.
"I don't like our garden any more," Jeannine suddenly declared. "I've not been down into it three times since we got there."
"Why not?"
"It doesn't belong to us now. The villa is sold."
"An accomplished fact?"
"Yes, with everything belonging to it. To some Americans, from the first of February."
This astonishes me:
"As soon as that?"