Page:Daphne, an Autumn Pastoral.djvu/32



"For I thought only of myself," the pen continued, "and ignored the obligations I had accepted. It is for you to choose whether you wish the words of that afternoon unsaid."

The letter signed and sealed, she rose with a great sigh of relief, and walked out upon the balcony. Overhead was the deep blue sky of a Roman night, broken by the splendor of the stars. She leaned over the stone railing of the balcony, feeling beneath her, beyond the shadow of the cypress trees, the distance and darkness of the Campagna. There was a murmur of water from the fountain in the garden, and from the cascades on the hill.

"If he were Apollo," she announced to the listening stars, "it would not be a bit more wonderful than the rest of it. This is just a different world, that is all, and who knows whom I shall meet next? Maybe, if I haunt the hills, Diana will come and invite me to go a-hunting.