“But I think,” Senhouse went on, in a level voice, “I think you had better go back and face him.”
She started, she looked at him full of alarm. “Oh, don’t tell me to do that—I implore you. Let me stay here a little while, until I’m stronger.” He smiled, but shook his head.
“No, no. Too unconventional altogether. Really I mean what I say. If you are to be free you must fight yourself free. There’s no other way. Fight Germain, if it is worth your while; but fight Duplessis at all events. That is essential. Bless you, you have only to tell him the truth, and the thing’s done.”
She was very serious. “I assure you, it is not. He won’t care for the truth; he won’t care what I tell him—No, don’t ask me to do that. It’s not—kind of you.”
Senhouse got up. “Let’s go and look at my lilies,” he said. “We’ll talk about your troubles again presently.” She jumped to her feet and followed him down the mountain.
He led her by a scrambling path round the face of Great Gable, and so past Kirkfell foot into Mosedale, bright as emerald. As they neared the mountains, he showed her by name the Pillar, Steeple and Red Pike, Windy Gap and Black Sail. High on the southern face of the Pillar there was, he said, a plateau which none knew of but he. To reach it was a half-hour’s walk for her; but he encouraged her with voice and hand. There! he could tell her, at last; now she was to look before her. They stood on a shelf which sloped gently to the south. Mary caught her breath in wonder, and gave a little shriek of delight. “Oh, how exquisite! Oh, how gloriously beautiful!” A cloud of pale flowers—violet, rose, white, golden yellow—swayed and danced in the breeze, each open-hearted to the sun on stalks so slender that each bell seemed afloat in air—a bubble of colour; she thought she had never seen so lovely a thing. Senhouse, peacefully absorbing her wonder and their beauty, presently began to explain to her what he had done. “I had seen these perfect things in California, growing in just such a place; so when I lit on this plateau I never rested till I got what it was plainly made for. Full south, you see; sheltered on the east and north; good drainage, and a peaty bottom. I had a hundred bulbs sent out, and put them in three years ago. No flowers until this year; but they’ve grown well—there are nearly two hundred of them out now. I’ve had to work at it though. I covered them with bracken every autumn, and kept the ground clean—and here they are! With luck, the tourists won’t light on them until there are enough and to spare. They are the worst. I don’t mind the Natural History Societies a bit; they take two or three, and publish the find—but I can stand that, because nobody reads their publications. The trippers take everything—or do worse. They’ll cut the lot to the ground—flowers and leaves alike; and, you know, you kill a bulb if you take its leaves. It can’t eat, poor thing—can’t breathe. Now just look into one of those things—look at that white one.” She was kneeling before the bevy, and cupped the chosen in her two hands. “Just look at those rings of colour—flame, purple, black, pale green. Can such a scheme as that be matched anywhere? It’s beyond talk, beyond dreams. Now tell me, have I done a good thing or not?”
She turned him a glowing face. “You ought to be very happy.”
He laughed. “I am happy. And so may you be when you please.”
“Ah!” she looked ruefully askance. “I don’t know—I’m not sure. But if I am ever to be happy it will be by what you teach me.”
“My child,” said Senhouse, and put his hand on her shoulder, “look at these things well—and then ask yourself, Is it worth while troubling about a chap like Duplessis, while God and the Earth are making miracles of this sort every day somewhere?” Thoughtful, serious, sobered, she knelt on under his hand.