Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/142

 "What an enchanting world it is!" she murmured, with wide eyes full of the glamour of the setting sun. "Beautiful, beautiful! How soon one forgets the fogs, and rain, and cold! I feel as if I had lived in this fairyland always."

Her lips trembled a little as she spoke, and Sir Geoffrey found something in the pathos of her youth which held him silent. When they broke the spell of silence, their words were trivial, perhaps, but the language was that of old friends, simple and direct. Sir Geoffrey at least, for whom the charm of the occasion was a gift so rare that he scarcely dared to desecrate it by mental criticism, was far from welcoming the interruption which presently occurred, in the shape of a youth, arrayed in immaculate flannels and the colours of a popular rowing club, who hailed them cheerfully from a light skiff, resting on his sculls and drifting alongside while he rolled a cigarette.

Dorothy sank down, rather wearily, in the low basket-chair which stood near the open window of her mother's bedroom—a tall French window, with a wide balcony overrun by climbing roses, and a view of the river, and waited for Mrs. Vandeleur to dismiss her maid. As she lay there, adjusting absently the loose tresses of her hair, she could feel the breath of the faint breeze as it wandered, gathering a light burden of fragrance, through the dusky roses; she could see the river, dimly, where the moonbeams touched its ripples, and once or twice the sound of voices reached her from the distant smoking-room. The closing of the door as the maid went out disturbed her reverie, and turning a little in her chair she found her mother regarding her thoughtfully.