I turned to Pelleas, longing to tell him that we were finding the end of one rainbow after another. And Pelleas was at that moment lifting his glass.
“Here’s to Christmas,” he cried as he met my eyes, “the loving cup of days!”
XVII
CHRISTMAS ROSES
When our guests were gone Pelleas and I sat for some while beside the drawing-room fire. They had brought us a box of Christmas roses and these made sweet the room as if with a secret Spring—a Little Spring, such as comes to us all, now and then, through the year. And it was the enchanted hour, when Christmas eve has just passed and no one is yet awakened by the universal note of Get-Your-Stocking-Before-Breakfast.
“For that matter,” Pelleas said, “every day is a loving cup, only some of us see only one of its handles: Our own.”
And after a time:—
“Isn’t there a legend,” he wanted to know, “or if there isn’t one there ought to be one, that the first flowers were Christmas roses and that you can detect their odour in all other flowers? I’m not sure,” he warmed to the subject, “but that they say if you look steadily, with clear eyes, you can see all about every flower many little lines, in the shape of a Christmas rose!”
Of course nothing beautiful is difficult to believe. Even in the windows of the great florists, where the dear flowers pose as if for their portraits, we think that one looking closely through the glass may see in their faces the spirit of the Christmas roses. And when the flowers are made a gift of love the spirit is set free. Who knows? Perhaps the gracious little spirit is in us all, waiting for its liberty in our best gifts.
And at thought of gifts I said, on Christmas eve of all times, what had been for some time in my heart:—