“And in New York,” he said to himself, “we swear because it takes us twenty minutes to get to Wall Street on the elevated!”
He went on, glad of the rest, passing from sunlight to shadow along the uneven sidewalk and finally crossing the bridge, a tiny affair over a shallow stream of limpid water which trickled musically over its bed of white sand. Beyond the bridge the sidewalk ceased and he went on for a little distance over a red clay road, rutted by wheels and baked hard by the sun. Then a picket fence which showed evidence of having once been whitewashed met him and he felt a sudden stirring within him. This was Waynewood, doubtless, and it belonged to him. The thought was somehow a very pleasant one. He wondered why. He had possessed far more valuable real estate in his time but he couldn’t recollect that he had ever thrilled before at the thought of ownership.
“Oh, there’s magic in this ridiculous air,” he told himself whimsically. “Even a toad would look romantic here, I dare say. I wonder if there is a gate to my domain.”
Behind the fence along which he made his way was an impenetrable mass of shrubbery and trees. Of what was beyond, there was no telling. But presently the gate was before him, sagging wide open on its rusted hinges. From it a straight path, narrow and shadowy, proceeded for some distance, crossed a blur of sunlight and continued to where a gleam of white seemed to indicate a building. The path was set between solid rows of oleander bushes whose lanceolate leaves whispered murmurously to Winthrop as he trod the firm, moss-edged path.
The blur of sunlight proved to be a break in the path where a driveway angled across it, curving on toward the house and backward toward the road where, as Winthrop later discovered, it emerged through a gate beyond the one by which he had entered. He crossed the drive and plunged again into the gloom of the oleander path. But his journey was almost over, for a moment later the sentinel bushes dropped away from beside him and he found himself at the foot of a flower garden, across whose blossom-flecked width a white-pillared, double-galleried old house stared at him in dignified calm. The porches were untenanted and the wide-open door showed an empty hall. To reach that door Winthrop had to make a half circuit of the garden, for directly in front of him a great round bed of roses and box barred his way. In the middle of the bed a stained marble cupid twined garlands of roses about his naked body. Winthrop followed the path to the right and circled his way to the drive and the steps, the pleasure of possession kindling in his heart. With his foot on the lowest step he paused and glanced about him. It was charming! Find his health here? Oh, beyond a doubt he would. Ponce de Leon had searched in this part of the world for the Fountain of Youth. Who knew but that he, Robert Winthrop, might not find it here, hidden away in this fragrant, shaded jungle? And just then his wandering glance fell on a sprawling fig-tree at the end of the porch, at a white figure perched in its branches, at a girl’s fresh young face looking across at him with frank and smiling curiosity.
Winthrop took off his hat and moved toward the fig-tree.