Mrs. Reid quite laughed at the question as Sheila passed her going out.
“As many as ever you like. And take care not to slip on the pebbled paths. People have got to get used to them.”
Ronald was outside, and hailed Sheila eagerly.
“Come along and let us explore!” he cried. “Give me your hand. These cobbles are mighty slippery. They say gravel would be washed away by the tropical showers even if they could get it. But it’s precious queer walking down these steep places. One wants to be a bullock for that.”
It was a strange, wild garden, with great palms growing in the beds, and the walls of the terraces, for it was all more or less terraced out of the face of the cliff, covered with curtains of creepers, most of them a mass of bloom. Roses in sprays as long as your arm drooped temptingly within reach, and the little heavy-scented gardenia filled the air with fragrance.
Sheila ran from place to place, exclaiming and admiring, glancing with shy interest at other visitors strolling about, and making her companion laugh again and again by her enthusiasm.
“Oof, a tennis-court!” she cried, darting suddenly through an opening. “Oh, did you ever see anything so lovely? It is like a Tadema picture!”
It was rather, for the floor was of concrete, looking white in the fading light, and there were stone seats all round it for spectators, whiter still. All round a trellis had been placed, wired in against balls, and this trellis was just one sheet of glorious colour. Curtains of bougainvillia hung over at one place, at another heliotrope of roses made a perfect screen, intermingled with scarlet geranium, poinsettia, and plumbago. Through little gaps in this floral curtain, and through vistas of palm and cactus beyond, could be caught glimpses of the blue sea, and overhead the sky rose sapphire clear, with that peculiar purity and depth of colour which characterises those latitudes.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” cried Sheila in ecstasy.