Mrs. Trempleau came toward us flickering prettily—I protest that she reminded me of a thin flame, luminous, agile, seeking. She had hair like the lights in agate, and for its sake her gown and hat were of something coloured like the reflection of the sun in a shield of copper. She had a fashion of threading her way through an hour of talk, lighting a jest here, burning a bit of irony there, smouldering dangerously near the line of daring. And that day as she moved from group to group on the veranda the eyes of us all, of whom Hobart Eddy was chief, were following her. I think it may have been because her soul was of some alien element like the intense, avid spirit of the flames, though when I told Pelleas he argued that it was merely the way she lifted her eyes.
“Where is Mr. Trempleau?” Pelleas added, his nature as I have said being built on straight lines.
“There may be one,” I answered, “but I think he lives on some other continent.”
Pelleas reflected.
“Hobart Eddy and Pelham and Clox look in love with her,” he said; “if she doesn’t take care there won’t be enough continents.”
In no small amusement during luncheon we watched Hobart Eddy, especially Pelleas and I who, however, besides being amused, were also a little sad. Mrs. Trempleau’s appropriation of him was insistent but very pretty. Indeed, if she had on a night of stars appropriated Sirius I dare say the constellations would have sung approval. She had the usual gift of attractive faults. But above Mrs. Trempleau’s shoulders and beyond the brightness of her hair I had, at luncheon, glimpses which effectually besought my attention from the drama within. The long windows overlooked the May orchards, white and sweet and made like youth, and I was impatient to be free of the woman’s little darting laughs and away to the fields. Some way, in her presence it was not like May.
Therefore, when Pelleas had been borne to the stables by his host and when the others had wandered back to the veranda, I went away down what I think must have been a corridor, though all that I remember is a long open window leading to the Spring, as if one were to unlatch an airy door and reveal a diviner prospect than our air infolds. A lawn, cut by a gravel walk bounded by tulips, sloped away from this window to the orchard and I crossed the green in the frank hope that the others would not seek me out. But when I turned the corner by the dial I came fairly on two other wanderers. There, with the white-embroidered nurse-maid, sat, like another way of expressing the Spring, Enid’s baby. Was ever such happy chance befallen at the gate of any May orchard whatever?
“Ah,” I cried to the little nurse, “Bonnie! Come quickly. I see a place—there—or there—or there—where you must bring the baby at once—at once! Leave the perambulator here—so. He is awake? Then quickly—this way—to the pink crab apple-tree.”
I sometimes believe that in certain happy case I find every one beautiful; but I recall that Bonnie—of whom I shall have more to tell hereafter—that day seemed to me so charming that I suspected her of being Persephone, with an inherited trick of caring for the baby as her mother cared for Demophoön.
To the pink crab apple-tree! What a destination. It had for me all the delight of running toward, say, the plane tree in the meadow of Buyukdere. I remember old branches looking like the arms of Pan, wreath-wound, and rooms of sun through which petals drifted ... who could distinctly recall the raiment of such an hour? But at length by many aisles we came to a little hollow where the grass was greenest, hard by the orchard arbour, and we stood before the giant pink crab apple-tree. Has any one ever wondered that Sicilian courtiers went out a-shepherding and that the Round Table, warned to green gowns, fared forth a-Maying?