On Athalie's frail white gown one alighted,—a little grey thing wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds
on its forewings; and as it sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from burnished gold to green.
"Wonders, wonders, under the moon," murmured the girl—"thronging miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the loveliness that I 'see clearly' is like my own blindness to the hidden wonders of the night—where uncounted myriads of little rainbow spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange."
"I suppose," he said, "that the unseen night world all around us is no more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us never see, never suspect."
"I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see only what they see,—merely that small portion of activity and life which the world calls 'living things,' I should find the sunlit world rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars."
After a few minutes' thought he asked in a low voice whether at that moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves.
"Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when this old house was new."
"Could you not ask them who they were?"
"No, dear."