As he saw the yacht approach the sea-wall now, he turned away impatiently and went into the house to his books. He did not choose to assist at the festive procession which was conducting this poor little wild goat of the cliffs to be offered upon the altars of caprice and flattery.
As if, he thought, a life out of the world were not such an enviable thing that we should be as afraid to destroy it as we are afraid to break a Tanagra statuette!
Meanwhile, unretarded by his displeasure, the schooner approached as nearly as the draught of water would permit, and the boat from it landed Damaris Bérarde at the foot of the rose-marble stairs. Béthune would have assisted her, but she sprang from the boat to the landing-stair with the assured and graceful agility of one who passed all her life in the open air, and was practised in the free exercise of all her muscles. Her eyes gazed in delighted wonder at the beauty of the place.
'It is like Alcina's palace,' she said with a quick breath of admiration.
'What do you know of Alcina?' asked her hostess, amused.
'I have read Ariosto,' she answered, and then, with her extreme care for perfect truthfulness, added, 'I mean I have read his poems, translated.'
'It is rather your island which is like Alcina's,' said her hostess.
Then they led her through the gardens, which seemed all a maze of rose, of yellow, and of white from the innumerable thickets of azalea which were in bloom. Here and there, out of their gorgeous glow of colour, there rose the white form of a statue or the white column of a fountain. The sun was still high in the west; the gardens seemed to laugh like children in its warmth.
It was all so beautiful, so magical, so strange; the child whose imagination had been fed on poets' fancies, and had grown unchecked in an almost complete solitude, expected some marvellous message, some wondrous destiny to meet her there on this threshold of a new life.