A pause. An insect cheeping somewhere under boxwood.
“Then why don’t you take me, foolish boy?” Woman Beautiful laughed softly.
Hushed Japanese night, the moon riding hazily above the rakish branches of eucalyptus now, cicadas singing on into eternity, paper lanterns bobbing far across elfin dark! They stood amid the trillion blossoms of cherry trees whose petals sifted all around them, and Nathan knew for the first time in twenty-nine barren, heart-breaking years, the sensation of a real woman’s soft arms about his neck and the sweet, scented, delicate impress of a real woman’s kiss upon his lips, returning his caress with a warmth and a tenderness that fused his heart and his soul and made them as one forever.
The white parasol was lying on the bench. No one was left in the park but themselves. The moonlight was again shining into a woman’s face as they stood there for an instant and Nathan held her close. But she was not weakly flaccid in his embrace. Her body thrilled to his.
“Dear lad,” she said in a faint whisper, “I’ve waited a dreary time for your strong arms around me and your hard-shaven cheek close to mine. Oh, I don’t mean merely since the Great Noon-time in Siberia. Years before that, dear lad, years and years! Sunlit days, gray days, rainy afternoons, empty twilights, nights when I wanted to sob in the darkness—I thought of you and wondered where you were, and what you were doing, and if in your heart there was a little lonely ache likewise. I wondered how badly you needed me, dear lad, even as I needed you. For my heart ached for Romance, too, until it almost seemed I’d accept my disappointment and believe it had passed me by. But God is good. You’re getting only a little orphaned girl, dear lad, found under a haycock on the edge of a wood. But she loves you—loves you a bit terribly—she has always loved you—loved you even before she knew your name, or where you were, or what the sound of your voice was like. You are her life and her world henceforth. She, too, has found her Other Half and her heart will never greet the sunshine coming across the hill tops in the morning without a song springing to her lips and tears to her eyes. It has been a bitter wait, dear lad, and the way has not always seemed clear. But the end of the trek—it is sweet, very sweet. We will go back, we will go home. And all the beautiful things you have wanted, that I can help you get—they shall come to you. All the artistry and softness and richness I can help bring to you shall surround you. You shall do your work with a song in your heart also. Every hour shall be a golden moment. Time shall be a thing only to pass away. Oh, Nathan dear, I’m the happiest of women. We’ll go home with the morrow. Together we will go home and dwell—in a Palace Beautiful—whose windows look out on Delectable Mountains, indeed!”
“To-morrow—at two o’clock—home!”
“Home!” she repeated. “Oh, Nathan!”
III
During that night before their departure, clouds blew in from the Pacific and blanketed the sea-coast country. They awoke the next morning to find a light drizzle falling. But it held up after breakfast and Madelaine declared, as she turned in her room keys:
“I’ve several purchases to make before we go on board. Let’s go penny-shopping together.”