We went across the strip of terrace with a pleasure that was like the pleasure of beginnings. In the center of the garden was a little pool for water flowers and there we set the fountain free in the sheer delight of bringing about all the liberty possible; and we watched the scarlet tanagers bathing in the trickling outlet beside the Hundred-leaved rose. And so we came at last to the arbour in a green corner of the wall, and in its doorway we stood still with the reasonable impression that we were thinking what we seemed to see.
On a bench beneath a window where the roses made an oval open to the garden sat a girl. At first, save the shining of her hair, I saw only that she had beside her a little traveling bag and, also beside her, a fine, manly boy of not a day more than twenty-two. She was crying a little and he was attempting with adorable awkwardness to comfort her. At first glance the most rational explanation was that they were run-away sprites from some neighbouring goblin settlement, and Pelleas and I were making a sympathetic effort to withdraw when they looked up and saw us.
Lo, with a little traveling bag between them, there were Lisa and Eric.
Almost before I grasped the import of this I hurried forward and took Lisa in my arms. In all possible affairs I firmly believe that the kiss should come first and the explanation afterward.
“But it is Lisa!” I cried. “Pelleas, it is Lisa and Eric. Wherever have you come from, dear heart?”
The story was out in one burst of courage with the tears so near, so near.
“I came from Chynmere,” she said; “Uncle Dudley and I are still at the Wortleys’, you know—that is, Uncle Dudley is there. I—I ran away from the Hall this m-morning. I—I eloped. I—Eric—we are going to be—”
Of course the rest was luminously clear.
“Dear heart,” I cried, “then what in this world are you crying for?”
Crying. In the midst of one’s elopement on a glad morning with the sun slanting in every direction and butterflies vanishing against the blue.