Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/21

Rh and always good to be with and look upon. Gilbert loved to sit in her lap, and touch her hair, brushed to such silky smoothness and parted in the middle. As she bent over, he would run both hands back over it from her forehead, and laugh as she and pretended to arrange it again.

Gilbert liked to have Garna all to himself, and it was fortunate that Olga was not much interested in Garna. She did not seem to half appreciate her or her wonderful room. But once in a while she would take a perverse desire to come in with Gilbert when he went to see Garna. Olga would have to be prevented with all his weight and force. How could he stand so outrageous an invasion of his rights? And Olga would probably hit him, concentrating all her round little pugnacity into one stout blow, and Gilbert would hit back, and Olga would scream, and Mother would come running, and there would be many tears, and Eden would be spoiled, if not altogether denied him, for that afternoon. On the very threshold, Olga, who did not really care to be with Garna, had ruined his day with her! Hateful little Olga! And all the time, Garna would be inside, behind the closed door, serene, unheeding, letting her daughter, Gilbert's mother, settle the whole affair, as far away as if she were in Pampeluna. Gilbert felt the perversity of Fate, the inexorable aloofness of the gods, the fragility of happiness. Going eagerly to taste this sweet exhilaration of an afternoon with Garna, the cup, without any warning whatever, would be fatally dashed from his lips. But he could not have it shared with Olga!

Between Garna's chair and the window was a high, chintz-coloured box which opened into a voluminous cavern of sheets and white things. In the corner just behind Garna's chair was the tall secretary-desk, with its big doors above that opened on shelves full of books, and its heavy writing-lid which folded down and rested horizontally on two supports that pulled out on each side. You could sit on the high chintz-box and write on the secretaire. Gilbert thought this was one of the most satisfactory spots in the whole world. At your right was the window looking down through the black-walnut trees to the street below; just behind you sat Garna, busily knitting or sewing; you had all the flat, shiny surface of the lid to make your puzzles on, or practise or draw on; your legs hung down over the chintz-box, high above the ground; you were shut in to the most delicious privacy. At the back of the sec-