“What part of the garden?” he shouted. “Never mind!” he cried in alarm, lest Mrs. Broughton should volunteer to guide him. “Don’t bother to show me; I can find her.”
Mrs. Broughton went into the Consulate and complained to her husband.
“It makes Roddy so selfish,” she protested.
“What did you think he’d do?” demanded Broughton—“ask you to go with him? You forget Roddy comes from your own happy country where no chaperon is expected to do her duty.”
Inez was standing by the bench at which they had parted. Above her and around her the feathery leaves of the bamboo trees whispered and shivered, shading her in a canopy of delicate sun-streaked green.
Like a man who gains the solid earth after a strenuous struggle in the waves, Roddy gave a deep sigh of content.
“It has been so hard,” he said simply. “It’s been so long! I have been parched, starved for a sight of you!”
At other times when they had been together the eyes of the girl always looked into his steadily or curiously. Now they were elusive, shy, glowing with a new radiance. They avoided him and smiled upon the beautiful sun-steeped garden as though sharing some hidden and happy secret.
“I sent for you,” she began, “to tell you——”
Roddy shook his head emphatically.