The moment when, emerging on the terrace, they sat down under the canopy of rose, looking out towards the sea, now calm, only slightly tremulous, all pink and silver in the quiet bay, and she heard Everest ordering tea for them, with every luxury imaginable added for her, she knew for her, since he rarely took cakes and chocolates and strawberries and cream; and the moment when they sat silent and very near together, looking at each other over the empty tea-cups, and drinking in the peace and sweetness, the calm of all about them.
What a pity to have to go back to the Rectory. Overhead a little window, embowered in roses, looked out upon the sea. That window belonged to a room that the voluble innkeeper had offered Everest if they wanted to stay the night. What a pity that they couldn't stay at the little inn and sit side by side on its terrace, looking out to a pink and silver distance for ever and ever! Such thoughts were in their minds, equally in the man's as in the girl's; with such little simple pleasures does cunning Nature amuse her cleverest children, for these little things, these tiny golden seconds, are bridges leading over to the great, the greatest things in life.
And the walk back inland, through the great green woods, was a rapture too, though pierced by pain, as each step brought them nearer home.
Their talk went on, bright, inspiring talk, never personal, never petty, but always on the wide, open fields, in the broad plains of thought and intellect; for these two were absolutely alike in their abhorrence of the common and the commonplace, the mean, the small and the trivial, and they were also very singularly akin in all emotions and modes of thought, in their estimation of man, in their view of him as the blot upon creation, as Nature's mistake, in their estimation of his rapacity and cruelty, his infinite littleness and stupidity. They were alike too in their love for the animal world, for all the gracious, sweet and lovely lives about us on this earth, that man, in his stupendous imbecility, dares to say were created for him to trample upon.
In this connection, the girl asked him suddenly if it were true that he had shot much in Africa, and Everest replied: "I used to shoot a good deal, but I never liked it, except as an exhibition of skill, and as one gets older one sees more and more into the horror of taking innocent and beautiful lives for one's own amusement." And Regina loved him more than ever for this speech.
Their minds in their kinship were like two eagles, that, flying from different quarters, had suddenly met and, happy in companionship, after lonely travel, soared upwards to the blue zenith together.
The difference in age was hardly perceptible between them. Everest had been at eighteen just like Regina now, and Regina at forty-six would be like Everest now, and so they met and talked on equal ground, as a man soliloquises with himself.
Everest did not seek to kiss her until they came to the border of the home copse where they must part. There he drew her into a close, long embrace and she threw her arms about his neck and kissed him back as she had not ventured to do till now—their talk had drawn them so near to each other. Then white and breathless she ran from him through the mossy copse and so home and upstairs, and Everest later slowly crossed the lawn to the Rectory and his own rooms, entering by the long French windows.
For many days after this, they met in the enchanted garden, and Regina lived in paradise.