And truly the three months had for him been beautiful in vain. He had not seen their glad, pelting showers, their dim, soft rains, nor the glory of their sunshine, and their moonlights had been to him as spilt wine.
He could not help being soothed by these friends. There was no obtrusive sympathy, no condolence hard to answer to, no affected reserve concerning his affliction. He was free to speak of it or not, as he should choose. They went on with some trifling employment while they talked to him; or, if silent, he felt their kindly, homelike presence. Then the large, cool house was refreshing after the dust and heat of the city.
Silence was sweetest in that sultry noon; and, presently perceiving it, they did not speak. But the oaks outside rustled like oaks of Dodona, and what had seemed silence grew to be fullest sound. There was a stir of plants uneasy with growing, multitudinous tiny voices of insects in the grasses, bee and bird and the murmur of waters, the wings of doves that half flew, half dropped, in purple flocks from the eaves, the fall of an over-ripe peach, the shrill cicala, the fond sighing of the brooding air in whose bosom all these sounds nestled.
Alice rose to lower the crimson curtain over an intrusive sunbeam, (madame kept her crimson draperies up all summer, knowing that her complexion needed deep, warm lights,) and out of revenge the brightness poured through the tissue, its gold changed to a rosy fire. Pausing in that light to listen, she stood aglow, her pale-brown hair, her clear eyes, her white dress.
"It is a Guido!" whispered Verheyden, with a flash of light across his face.
"No," said madame; "it is the Charity for which Ruskin longed, floating all pink and beautiful down to earth, the clouds blushing as she passes."
The sun went lingeringly down the west, a breeze fluttered up from the south, and they roused themselves to open the windows.
A piano drew Verheyden by all his aching heart-strings. He seated himself before it and played the base of Rossini's Cujus Animam. As he played, a fair hand stole to the keys at his right and played the Aria.
"It kills me! Alice, it kills me!" he moaned out, turning his haggard face toward her.