A nightingale began to sing in the garden; broken notes, a mere echo of what the stars heard at night, but infinitely sweet as the soul of a rose made audible; and as he sang a sudden ray of sunshine shot the grey rain with silver. It seemed to Jean that rose-sweetness was all about him in this his short triumph of love; that a flower’s heart beat against his own, that a flower’s lips caressed the lean darkness of his cheek. There were threads of gold in the soft brown tangle of hair—gold unalloyed as was the hard-won happiness that made him feel himself invincible, panoplied in an armour of joy that should defend them from all slings and arrows. He was happy, and so the world seemed full of music; there was harmony in the swaying of tall dark cypresses, moved by winds that strewed the grass with torn petals of orange blossoms from the trees by the lake side, in the clouds’ processional, in the patter of rain on the green shining laurel leaves.
Laurels—his laurels had been woven in with rue, and latterly with rosemary for dear remembrance; he had never cared greatly for his fame and it seemed worthless to him now that he had realised his dream and gathered his rose.
He was impatient to be gone, to take the woman he loved out of this house of sad memories, of empty echoes, of dust and rust and decay. Already he seemed to feel the rush of the cold night air, to hear the roar of Arno, hurrying to the sea, above the steady throbbing of the car; to see the welcoming lights of home shining out of the dark at the steep edge of the hills above Settignano.
“About the Prince,” he said presently. “Am I to fight him?”
She started. “Oh, no! That would be worse than ever. I thought you were too English for that,” she said naïvely.
He smiled. “Well, perhaps I am, but I suppose there may be a bit of a scuffle. You won’t mind that?”
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
A moment later they heard the gate creak as it swung on its hinges. “He is coming.”
They kissed hurriedly, with, on her side, a passion of farewell, and he would have made her go into the room beyond, but she clung to him, crying incoherently. “No ... no ... together ...”
Tor di Rocca stopped short by the door; the smile that had been in his hot eyes as they met Olive’s faded, and the short, Neronic upper lip lifted in a sort of snarl.