Early in the autumn Iona was to go out into the world, having instructed Tacita thoroughly and lovingly in all her work, and seen with what a modest dignity the girl she had thought almost childish could preside in her place.
She was in haste to go, but solely from a conviction that she was needed elsewhere.
“Wherever I am not absolutely needed, I am lost,” she said. “My life here is, and has been for a long time, that of a Sybarite. I am terrified when I think of a longer waste.”
“Stay till after the vintage,” they all urged her.
“I will stay on one condition,” she said to Dylar. “And that is that I may plan, and help to prepare a house for you and your bride. Once outside, I may not be able to come back and see you married; and it would be cruel if I could have no part.”
“But, Iona, Tacita has not promised to marry me,” Dylar said, smiling. “However, do as you please. May I ask what your plan is?”
She pointed to the college. As we have said, the building was large and irregular, crowning a mass of rock that broke roughly toward the town, and fell sheer on the mountain side, the narrow space spanned by a bridge from the college gate to the Ring. A small part of the structure toward the town was detached, a point of rock rising sharply between it and the main building. The only mode of communication between the two was by means of a stair at either side to a mirador built on the top of this point of rock, and a narrow gallery hung over the steepest fall of the rock. This semi-detached portion, containing but four rooms, was Dylar’s private apartment.
“With two large rooms in addition,” Iona said, “that would make you a charming apartment. There is yet space enough on the rock if we fill up that narrow interstice with masonry solid from the plain. The two rooms will be large, one a few steps higher than the other. They will be very stately, with the steps and curtain quite across one end. Where the stone breaks to right and left, a stair can start, double at the top, and meeting over an arch midway, to separate again below. There will be space also for a small terrace outside the door. It can be made something ideal. You use but two of the four rooms now. The little museum in the other two can be removed to the college. There is plenty of room. This work should be begun at once, masonry takes so long to dry well. But as your living-rooms would be the old ones, you need not put off your marriage till it is quite dry. There is no time to be lost.”
“No one plans like you,” Dylar said. “It will be charming. Do as you please. I will see if I can find a bride for your pretty house.”
He took his way to the library, where he had seen Tacita enter. She was there alone, lighting up a shadowed corner with her fair face and golden hair.