The orchestra was now executing a fantasy composed entirely of runs with the repetition of one bass note, and suddenly, without warning, her agony was once more upon her. Once more, distraught, breathless, she held that horrible envelope in her hand;—she read its superscription. The men in the orchestra, puffing at their horns, fingering their flutes, drawing their fiddle bows, were executing that final wild movement, not on their instruments, but on her heart.
She looked up and encountered Simon Hart's eyes. Instantly averting his gaze, he proposed that they leave the restaurant; when they were outside, he suggested that they walk through the square which perfumed the air with the odour of its great trees. But no sooner had they entered the square, than old David evinced a distaste for locomotion.
"I don't feel jest like myself somehow," he confided in a whisper to Emily Short. "Let's jest sit down here a minute." And the little toy-maker, who had her own reasons for wishing to leave the couple to themselves, readily complied.
Simon and Rachel walked on. At last, they also seated themselves on one of the benches. It was after ten o'clock and the square was deserted. The moon, in its first quarter, caused Washington arch to throw a black shadow athwart the path; and now and again the swaying branches of the trees brought out traceries of leaves on Rachel's white shoulders and on her sleeves. With his arms folded across his knees so that his head was on a level with hers, Simon began telling her about a recently published history of jewels that partly covered the field of a work he had long been engaged upon. As he spoke she noticed that since dinner his eyes had lost something of then weary look and that his nervousness had abated. He spoke with the masculine deliberation which women ordinarily find so irritating, but which, owing to the state of her nerves, calmed Rachel.
"However, my book," he explained, "deals almost exclusively with the legends connected with jewels. My aim is first and foremost, to restore to them their lost poetical significance. Plato, for instance, and the Egyptians, for that matter, believed that they were veritable beings produced by a sort of fermentation which was the result of a vivifying spirit descending from the stars. Look up there," he exclaimed, pointing to the sky, "then look at this, and tell me if it doesn't resemble star-gold condensed into a transparent mass;" and from his finger he drew a ring and placed it in her palm.
She was more and more comforted. As he enlarged on the theme, which was evidently a favourite one with him, she watched the gyrations of the fountain. Outlined to her vision, she beheld a life which seemed to her infinitely more tranquil than her own.
On their return to the Street of Masts, Emily assisted old David up the stairs and Rachel remained in the doorway waiting for Simon Hart to finish an interminable sentence. Weighty, carefully worded, laborious, his peroration, for the most part, fell on deaf ears. Never the less she was conscious of an involuntary attraction to him. When at last he extended his hand, she felt that he was stirred by some emotion he wished to conceal.
"Now that we have celebrated our newly-formed friendship," he said with an attempt at gallantry, "I shall expect you to call upon me should any matter come up in which I can serve you. Will you promise?"
The kindness was unexpected, her state forlorn. Her lips worked sensitively. "Yes," she said.
He lifted her hand to his lips; at once something penetrating and tender enveloped them.