My heart is calling.”
Never had the vaults seemed greener, the half light more mysterious under the massive trees. The far world was out of ken; they alone lived and had their being; the toil of man was not even like the long sob of a moonlit sea, or the sound of rivers running in the night.
The infinite strangeness of beauty shone over them like a wizard light out of the west. Igraine’s lips were very red, her face white in the shadows, her eyes deep with mute desire. Hand held hand, body touched body. Often she would lie out upon Pelleas’s arm, her head upon his shoulder, her hair clouding over his red harness. They were content to be together, to forget the world save so much of it as came within the ken of their eyes, and the close grip of their twined fingers. They said little as they swayed together under the trees. Soul ebbed into soul upon their lips, and a deep ecstasy possessed them like the throbbing pathos of some song.
As the day deepened Pelleas and Igraine turned back into the valley, hand in hand. The west burnt gold above the tree tops, the gnarled trunks were pillars of agate bearing Byzant domes of breathless leaves. By the white May trees the two horses stood tethered, black and grey against the grass. Loosing them, and taking each a bridle, they passed down through flowers to the cottage and the pool.
Garlotte met them there with her brown hair pouring over her shoulders, and a clean white kerchief over her throat and bosom. She came to them through a little thicket of fox-gloves that were budding early, white and purple. Her blue eyes quivered for a moment over Pelleas’s face as she made him a deep curtsey, and bent to kiss Igraine’s hand. There was a vast measure of sympathy in Garlotte’s heart, and yet for all her well-wishing she was troubled for the two, fearing for them instinctively with even her small knowledge of the world. She had learnt enough from Igraine to comprehend in measure that element of tragedy that had entered with Gorlois into her life. Her interest in the man Pelleas was no mere vulgar curiosity, rather an intense pity that permeated her warm innocence of spirit to the core.
She had spread supper on the table, a much meditated feast that had kept her eagerly busy since she had guessed the name of the strange knight who had ridden down out of the woods. She had the pride of a young housewife in her creamy milk, her bread. She had made a tansy cake, and there was a rich cream cheese ready in the cupboard, and a fat rabbit stewing by the fire. Yet for all her ingenuous pride she felt much troubled when it came to the test lest her fare should seem rude and meagre to the great knight in the red harness. Certainly he had a kind face and splendid eyes, but would he not smile at her humble supper, her horn cups, and her plates of hollywood? Her cares were empty enough, but they were very real to the sensitive child who feared to seem shamed before Igraine.
Half the happiness of life lies in the kindly sensibility of others to our desire for sympathy. A surly word, a trivial ungraciousness, a small deed passed over in thankless silence, how much these things mean to a sensitive heart! Garlotte, standing in her cottage door, half shy and timid, found her small fears mere little goblins of her own invention. Igraine, radiant as the evening, came and kissed her on the lips.
“Little sister, you have been very good to me.”
The great knight too was smiling at her in quite a fatherly fashion. What a strong face he had, and what a noble look; she felt sure that he was a good man, and her heart went out to him like an opening flower. When he took her hand, and a lock of her hair and kissed it, she went red as one of her own roses, and was dumb with an impulsive gladness.