He would try to make his boy sturdy and strong and courageous, swift to the race of life; he would train his boy to be a victor, to be a boy champion among other boys. Her son must not fail to win the crown of wild olive. And when he was a man——! But at that point in his dreams of the future Dion always pulled up. He could not see Rosamund as the mother of a man, could not see Rosamund old. She would, of course, be beautiful in old age, with a perhaps more spiritual beauty than she had even now. He shut his eyes, tried to imagine her, to see her before him with snow-white hair, a face perhaps etherealized by knowledge of life and suffering; once he even called up the most perfect picture of old age he knew of—the portrait of Whistler’s mother, calm, dignified, gentle, at peace, with folded hands; but his efforts were in vain; he simply could not see his Rosamund old. And so, because of that, he could only see their child as a very young boy, wearing a boy’s crown of wild olive, such as had once been won by the boy of twelve in the games at Olympia.
The last day of their visit to the green wilds and the hilltops dawned, still, cloudless and very hot. There was a light haze over Zante, and the great plain held a look of sleep—not the sleep of night but of the siesta, when the dreams come out of the sun, and descend through the deep-blue corridors to visit those who are weary in the gold. Rosamund, bareheaded, stood on the hill of Drouva and gazed towards the sea; her arm was round her olive tree; she looked marvelously well, lithe and strong, but her face was grave, held even a hint of sadness.
“Our last day here!” she said to Dion. “One more night with the stars, only one! Dion, when you brought me here, you did a dangerous thing.”
“Gave you opportunities for regret? D’you mean that?”
She nodded, still gazing towards Zante.
“Such opportunities!”
“It couldn’t be helped. I had to bring you.”
“Of course. I know. If you had let me leave Greece without coming here, and I had ever come to understand what I had missed, I don’t believe I could have forgiven even you.”
“I always meant to bring you here.”
“But you had a sudden impulse, didn’t you?”