His words expressed what she had already felt here in Beni-Mora, surreptitiously and yet powerfully. He said it, and last night the African hautboy had said it. Peace and a flame. Could they exist together, blended, married?
“Africa seems to me to agree through contradiction,” she added, smiling a little, and touching the snowy wall with her right hand. “But then, this is my first day.”
“Mine was when I was a boy of sixteen.”
“This garden wasn’t here then?”
“No. I had it made. I came here with my mother. She spoilt me. She let me have my whim.”
“This garden is your boy’s whim?”
“It was. Now it is a man’s——”
He seemed to hesitate.
“Paradise,” suggested Domini.
“I think I was going to say hiding-place.”