Page:Son of the wind.djvu/226

RV 210 "Sit down here," Carron said.

She took a place near one end, a conscious distance from him, sitting at the other. The dog lay down, pressed against her feet. Above their heads a thin and gauzy fan of clouds was spread in the sky, and the moon looked through it. The balcony faced from the back of the house, and at this point the ground fell away sharply, so that instead of looking into pines, they looked over them and saw a glimpse of distance. There was a wonderful play of silver upon these tree-tops, in hollow and hill of the moving, leafy surface—aisles of floating brightness, sparkling plains which were clearer for lying on the edge of shadow, lovelier because nowhere was the liquid brilliance of bare moonlight. All before them shone as in an enchanted veil.

The mystery was upon the girl's face, too, scarcely beautiful now, yet it was strange how this made no difference to him. He saw the traces of fatigue and of watching, perhaps of tears. What if, as her mother had said, she had watched and waited for him? He leaned forward, elbows on knees. The important thing he had had to say to her was just this—to be with her. But to be with her in perfection of unconsciousness, of confidence, as they had been; not in this silent discord, so cruelly out of key with the beautiful country, the veil of wonder over it, and