"You see," she said, "that gives me a modest income. I could live here very nicely. It has always been my dream… But of course everything now depends on where you are."
Surprised and touched he turned toward her: she flushed and smiled, suddenly realising the naïveté of her avowal.
"It's true," she said. "Every day I seem to become more and more entangled with you. I'm wondering whether I've already crossed the bounds of friendship, and how far I am outside. I can't seem to realise any longer that there is no bond between us stronger than preference… I was thinking – very unusual and very curious thoughts – about us both." She drew a deep, unsteady, but smiling, breath: "Clive, I wish you could marry me."
"You wish it, Athalie?" he asked, profoundly moved.
"Yes."
After a silence she leaned over and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
"Ah, yes," she said under her breath, – "that is what I begin to wish for. A home, and you… And – children."
He put his arm around her.
"Isn't it strange, Clive, that I should think about children – at my age – and with little chance of ever having any. I don't know what possesses me to suddenly want them… Wouldn't they be wonderful in that house? And they'd have that darling garden to play in… There ought to be a boy – several in fact, and some girls… I'd know what to do for them. Isn't it odd that I should know exactly how to bring them up. But I do. I know I do… I can almost see them playing in the garden – I can see their dear little faces – hear their voices – "
His arm was clasping her slim body very tightly, but she suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder; and her gaze became steady and fixed.
Presently he noticed it and turned his head in the same direction, but saw nothing except the sunlight sifting through the trees and the golden half-light of the woods beyond.
"What is it, Athalie?" he asked.
She said in a curiously still voice: "Children."
"Where?"
"Playing in the woods."
"Where?" he repeated; "I do not see them."
She did not answer. Presently she closed her eyes and rested her face against his shoulder again, pressing close to him as though lonely.
"They went away," she said in answer to his question… "I feel a little tired, Clive… Do you care for me a great deal?"
"Can you ask?"
"Yes… Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be many – for us both. The future is so bewildering – like a tangled and endless forest, and very dim to see in… But sometimes there comes a rift in the foliage – and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And for a moment one – 'sees clearly' – into the depths – a little way… And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, perhaps… I wonder if you love me – enough."
"Dearest – dearest – "
"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall remain unchanged – whatever changes us. How still the woods are – as still as dreams."
She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her eyes.
"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond… What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?"
"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods.
"A collie?"
"If you like."
"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children – " She looked up laughing: "Isn't it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my mind of children whenever I think about that house."
As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it you saw in the woods?"
"Children."
"Were they – real?"
"No."
"Had they died?"
"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice.
"I did not know you could see such things."
"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and – other things."
Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance – strove to explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself.
But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing for it – the craving, endless, unsatisfied.
CHAPTER XXIII
OVER the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there.
All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.
Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.
Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.
Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the moonlight, and a bat took it.
But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the frail wings came floating.
To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, mounting, overpowered another – clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, each in its turn dominant, triumphant.
Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.
"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.
He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning against the newel-post.
"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.