"No," she said, growing serious again, "it wouldn't—in Sheila's case. At least it wouldn't unless it got into just the right cage, hung in the sunshine and the south wind. That's what I'm afraid of, Peter—that Sheila herself will be snared into the wrong cage!"
But even while Mrs. Caldwell spoke, Sheila was standing at the open door of the right cage, gazing in with illumined eyes.
The spring was at its height, as warm and ripely blooming as early summer, and Sheila had slipped away to her favorite haunt of the back garden. She had taken a book with her, one of Peter's recommendation, and as she lay on the soft, fresh grass, she idly turned the pages, not from any desire to read, but for the pleasure of touching the leaves and knowing that, if she liked, she had only to look within for words that would create a fairyland as easily as the fingers of the spring had done.
But presently, sated with mere earth-sweetness, she lifted herself on her elbow and opened the book widely where her hand had finally rested. It was the choice of chance, that page; but, as happens every now and then, chance and the Shaping Power were at that moment one. For shining on the white leaf, as if written in silver, were the lines that have stirred every potential poet to rapture and self-knowledge:
—magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Sheila read them with no fore-warning of their moving music. They flashed, winged, into her tranquil world—and shook it to its foundations. For the first time the full sense of beauty rushed upon her, and she caught her breath with the keen, aching ecstasy of it:
—magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
She read the lines again, and now aloud, softly, with a beauty-broken breath. She had wanted something, and all the while this—this—had been waiting for her. Compared to the joy of it, what was the joy of looking into a mirror and finding oneself fair? What was any other beauty beside this beauty of words, of subtle harmony and exquisite imagery?
And then there came to her the thought that some one—some one just human like herself—yes, human and young—had written these lines, had drawn them from the treasure house of himself.
"Oh," she whispered, "how happy he must have been! How happy! To have written this! If I had done it——"