“I was not an elf then—one of the number who was honoured by your attentions?”
“Oh, dear me, no! Nothing so frivolous. You an elf! You were a woodcutter with a solemn face, and a long white beard, and a big strong axe, and you came trespassing into my glade with intent to kill my dear tree friends. But I circumvented you. When you took up your axe I swung on the branches till the sunshine danced on your eyes, and dazzled them so that you could not see.”
“The same old trick! I seem to have no difficulty in remembering you in that guise. It has a flavour of to-day.”
“Poof!” Jean blew disdain from pursed-up lips. “So much for you. If you are so clever at remembering, tell me something about Vanna as she was at that time. She was there that day—quite close to me. What was she like?”
Piers looked across to where Vanna sat, and, for the first time in the short history of their acquaintance, their eyes met with smiling ease and friendliness. Each felt a sense of relief to see the other in happier mood, and with it an increased appreciation of the other’s charm. “If he were always happy, how handsome he would be!”
“She is charming when she smiles. She should always smile!”
“So we are old friends, Miss Strangeways. We have Jean’s word for it, so it must be true. My memory is not very clear. Let me think. I was a woodcutter with a long grey beard. I must have looked rather striking in a beard. And I invaded Jean’s glade with intent to kill, and made your acquaintance there. What can you have been? Not a nymph, I think; perhaps a flower—”
Vanna lifted a protesting hand. Whence came this sudden tide of happiness; this swift rush of blood through the veins? The last year’s burden of sorrow had weighed heavily upon her shoulders; the Harley Street interview had seemed to put a definite end to youth and joy; but now suddenly, unreasonably, the mist lifted, she knew a feeling not only of mental but of actual physical lightness; hard-won composure gave place to the old gay impulse toward laughter and merriment.
“No—no. I guess what you are going to say; but spare me, I pray you! I was not ‘a violet by a mossy dell.’ It is the inevitable comparison, but it does not apply. Whatever I was, I am sure I was never content to nestle in that mossy bed.”
Piers Rendall looked at her reflectively, the smile still lingering round his mouth.