It was set down in clear text. Then a bird flew with a part of it in his beak. Like a shepherd, Like a shepherd. And the word shepherd stood alone, all bloomed out with little golden lilies. Dragon-flies and butterflies bore the promise on their wings; and where it bore roses, every rose had a humming-bird or bee sucking its sweetness out. The quick squirrel ran with what seemed a vine hanging from his upturned mouth; and the vine was a promise.
It was the Moorish idea. She had seen among their arabesques the motto of Ibn-l-ahmar: “There is no conqueror but God,” so interwoven with ornamentation. But that solemn Moorish reverence and piety did not touch the heart like this consoling tenderness.
Dinner was served on a table set before the window. It was a charming little dinner: a shaving of broiled ham; a miraculous soup; a bit of fish in a shell; a few ribs, crisp and tender, of roasted kid; rice in large white kernels; an exquisite salad of some tender herbs with lemon juice and oil that was like honey; a conserve of orange-blossoms, rich and thick; a tiny flask of red wine from which all acrid taste of seed and stem had been excluded; and lastly, a sip or two of coffee which defied criticism.
Evidently the cook of San Salvador was nothing less than a cordon-bleu.
The dinner done a healthy justice to, and praised, Tacita was once more left to herself. But first Marie brought a vase of olive oil and water with a floating flame, and set it in a little glazed niche in the wall that had its own pipe-stem of a chimney; and she drew back the window curtain. The lower part of it had lost the sun; but a bar of orange light crossed the top.
Tacita waited till the door closed, then looked out eagerly.
There were still mountains in a rugged magnificence of mass and outline; but the color left no room for disappointment. They faced the west with the kindled torch of a snow-peak above a tumult of gold and purple and deep-red. There were pines along the lower heights, and olives, and, lower still, fruit-trees. A rock protruding close to either side of the window narrowed the lower view. But only a few rods distant, a wedge of smooth green turf was visible, with a crowd of gayly-dressed children playing on it, tossing grace-hoops, chasing each other, and dancing.
Presently the air was filled with a sweet, tinkling music. The children ceased their play at the sound, and formed themselves in procession, with subsiding kitten-like skips, and passed along the green, and out of sight.
As she watched them, it occurred to Tacita for the first time to think that youth is beautiful. It is a thought that seldom occurs to the young, youth being a gift that is gone as soon as recognized. Her aching languor and weariness taught her the value of that elastic activity, and her sorrow suggested the charm of that unclouded gayety. Yes, it is beautiful, she thought, that evanescent blush of life’s morning forever hovering about the sterner facts of human existence.
She sat and looked out till the color faded from the heights, leaving only a spot of gold aloft; and, thinking that she must not go to sleep in her chair, fell sound asleep in it.