The next day, in the high golden noon, Rose came. I was on the lounge in the alcove parlor, my hair half streaming out of Lu's net; but he didn't mind. The light was toned and mellow, the air soft and cool. He came and sat on the opposite side, so that he faced the wall table with its dish of white, stiflingly sweet lilies, while I looked down the drawing-room. He had brought a book, and by-and-by opened at the part commencing, "Do not die, Phene." He read it through,—all that perfect, perfect scene. From the moment when he said,
"I overlean
This length of hair and lustrous front,—they turn
Like an entire flower upward,"—
his voice low, sustained, clear,—till he reached the line,
"Look at the woman here with the new soul,"—
till he turned the leaf and murmured,
"Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff
Be art,—and, further, to evoke a soul
From form be nothing? This new soul is mine!"—
till then, he never glanced up. Now, with a proud grace, he raised his head,—not to look at me, but across me, at the lilies, to satiate himself with their odorous snowiness. When he again pronounced words, his voice was husky and vibrant; but what music dwelt in it and seemed to prolong rather than break the silver silence, as he echoed,
"Some unsuspected isle in the far seas"!
How many read to descend to a prosaic life! how few to meet one as rich and full beside them! The tone grew ever lower; he looked up slowly, fastening his glance on mine.
"And you are ever by me while I gaze,—
Are in my arms, as now,—as now,—as now!"