"The earth is drunk with sweetness, and I see now how great joy is sib to great pain!" He shook himself. "Come back to earth and daylight, Alexander Jardine!" He put a hand, large, strong, and shapely, over Mrs. Alison's slender ivory one. "She, too, has long fingers, though her hand is brown. But it is an artist hand—a picture hand—a thoughtful hand."
Mrs. Alison laughed, but her eyes were tender over him. "Oh, man! what a great forest—what an ever-rising song—is this same thing you're feeling! And so old—and so fire-new!" They walked along the terrace to the porch. "They're bringing you Black Alan to ride away upon. But you'll come again as soon as Ian's here?"
"Yes, of course. You may be assured that if he is free of that Stewart coil—or if he is in it only so deep that he may yet free himself—I shall say all that I can to keep him free or to urge him forth. Not for much would I see Ian take ship in that attempt!"
"No!... I have been reading the Book of Daniel. Do you know what Ian is like to me? He is like some great lord—a prince or governor—in the court maybe of Belshazzar, or Darius the Mede, or Cyrus the Persian—in that hot and stately land of golden images and old rivers and the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer and all kinds of music. He must serve his tyrant—and yet Daniel, kneeling in his house, in his chamber, with the windows open toward Jerusalem, might hear a cry to hold his name in his prayers.... What strange thoughts we have of ourselves, and of those nearest and dearest!"
"Mr. Wotherspoon says that he is fifteenth-century Italian. You have both done a proper bit of characterization! But I," said Alexander, "I know another great territory of Ian."
"I know that, Glenfernie! And so do I know other good realms of Ian. Yet that was what I thought when I read Daniel. And I had the thought, too, that those old people were capable of great friendships."
Black Alan was waiting. Glenfernie mounted, said good-by again; the green boughs of the elm-trees took him and his steed.