“Death alone saves us from being fools,” he said, and his eyes had a seriousness as he watched her go.
Marpasse went down the hill, leaving the village on her left, and crossing the valley, climbed the slope to the great beech wood. The trunks were black and smooth under a splendour of green that shone in the sunlight. The earth still seemed virginal, for the flowers that had been touched by the bees were lost in the rich, rank lustiness of early summer. The valleys rippled with gold, and the may trees were still in bloom, and full of infinite fragrance.
Marpasse made her way through the wood, and came at last to the place where the beech boles stood like great pillars about an open court. There was a blur of colour against the green, the pink blush of an early rose that had run in riot over the wattle fence, and flowered like a rose tree in a garden of Shiraz. The dark brown thatch of the cell showed ragged holes where birds had burrowed in and built their nests. The grass stood knee deep in the glade, grass that seemed asleep in the warm sunlight, dreamed over by moon-faced daisies bewitched by the song of the bees.
Marpasse had taken cover behind the trunk of a beech tree. She had seen a track in the long grass where someone had passed but a short while ago. And Marpasse’s eyes beamed in her brown face. Her prophecy had also been fulfilled, for there, under the shade of the rose tree she saw Denise amid the grass, her knees drawn up, and her chin resting in the palms of her two hands.
Marpasse watched her awhile, indulging her own philosophy much like a nurse commenting upon a child.
“Heart of mine, but somebody should be here in my place. What a sad, white face, to be sure, and what eyes—as though the whole world were on its death bed! We will change all that, my dear. You shall be the colour of the rose bush before the day is out.”
She slipped from behind the tree, and crossed the grass, singing a song that she had often sung upon the road. And she saw Denise’s face start up into the sunlight out of its mood of mists and sadness. A tendril of the rose tree caught Denise’s hair as Marpasse pushed open the rotting gate.
Marpasse laughed, happy, yet with a lovable shyness in her eyes.
“See what it is to be desired,” said she, “even the rose tree must catch at that hair of yours. Heart of mine—how you tremble!”
She took Denise and held her, kissing her mouth.