To think how little I dreamed it led
To an age so blessed that by its side
Youth seems the waste instead!”
We do not think that the balcony itself can have agreed with this, because it was a moon balcony, made for youthful lovers. But roses are like a chorus, explaining what is; and no one can persuade us that these failed to understand.
XV
THE WEDDING
Toward the end of July we found that the lodge at Little Rosemont was to be vacant for a month or two and Pelleas rented it, furnished, from the agent; and we took Nichola and moved down the length of the gravel to the littlest house in the world, set in the littlest garden. There we were established three days and more before Avis and Lawrence were expected home.
We had merely crossed the garden from the great house, and yet life in the little house seemed another matter, as if a harp were heard in a room instead of in an open field. We felt less professionally alive and more free to live. It was as if, Pelleas said, we were reading a poem rather for the exquisite meaning than for the exquisite rhythm.
There was another reason why the lodge invited us. Though it was nearly August, its tiny garden, walled round with a half-moon of hedge, was rich with roses as if, Pelleas said, for an after-meeting of certain Junes. For the lodge garden had been set with monthly roses, those prodigals of giving, and there Chinese roses, Bengal roses, Giant of Battles and Cloth of Gold rioted about a Hundred-leaved rose from the Caucasus and that week they were all ripe with bloom.
That first morning as we stepped on the porch was a kind of greeting, as intimate and personal as a nod. Pelleas and I stood in the garden with the sun, as I believe, slanting madly in every direction and butterflies vanishing against the blue. At all events, that is as I soberly recall the day; and yet it is the day which we remember as our one offence against love. It was the one time in our life that we said of two lovers in whom we believed: “Are we sure that they are right?” instead of our usual: “Let them be married to-day!” I can hardly credit my own feint at heartlessness.