“In the Faete vineyards—you know where they are—the vines have gone wrong.”
“Oh, dear! Tell me all about it.”
The custodian of the English Garden bowed low to the pale lady in black, opened the gate for her, and inquired if she needed a guide. She refused, saying that she knew her way. Indeed, she trod the broad level path, whence branched many narrow ones, as deliberately as if she were accustomed to walk there. She had closed her black lace parasol, allowing the sun to warm her arms and shoulders under the slightly transparent gauze of her dress. Her black lace bonnet was fastened on with hammer-headed jet pins, like a veil. She hesitated when she reached the spot where the paths diverged. She turned and looked at the closed gate; through it she could catch a glimpse of the park, before her the enchanting incline of the walks, sloping under green boughs. She turned slowly into one that was bordered by a hedge of green myrtle, treading so lightly that her high heels hardly touched the cool ground. The trees formed a verdant arch, like the walls of a grotto, and far off, at the end of the walk, a hole let in the light. She wandered on through the grey twilight, suffering a stray leaf that dropped from overhead to rest on her garments, standing to watch the lizards at play. Then she resumed her rhythmic walk, while her dress brushed the myrtle hedge, and her gaze wandered through the murmuring solitude.
At the end of the slanting walk there was a little vale where other walks met and crossed; in its midst was a shady valley, shut in by dark hilly ground that was seamed in every direction by the yellow lines of the gravel. All round her stood horse-chestnuts, dwarf oaks, and tall, meagre, dusty eucalypti: complete solitude. She bent her steps towards the field, but all at once stopped midway, frightened and trembling, for Andrea had suddenly appeared before her. Without speaking, they looked into each other’s eyes. He had come from below: she must have appeared to him like a Madonna, descending from the clouds.
They did not speak, but went on side by side, without looking at each other. They went down into the vale; Andrea, aggrieved because she was not hanging on his arm, yet not daring to ask her to do so.
“How is it that you are here?” she asked, suddenly and curtly.
“I can’t tell you. Down there the heat and the boredom were enough to kill one.”
“For no other reason?”
“I ... thought you would come here.”