“Miss Eve, where’ve you been all the winter? In London?”

 

“Yes, in London.”

 

“Do you like London better than Fernhill?”

 

“No, not better. You see, there are no fairies in London.”

 

“And did you paint pictures in London?”

 

“Sometimes. But people are in too much of a hurry to look at pictures.”

 

Miss Vance, as much the time-table as ever, met them where the white gate opened on to the heath garden. It was Lynette’s supper hour, an absurd hour, she called it, but she obeyed Miss Vance with great meekness¹, remembering that God still had to be kept without an excuse for being churlish.

 

Eve and Miss Vance smiled reminiscently at each other. It was Miss Vance’s last term at Fernhill.

 

“Good night, Miss Eve, dear. You will come again to-morrow?”

 

“Yes; I will try to.”

 

Canterton and Eve were left alone together, standing² by the white gate that opened into the great gardens of Fernhill. Canterton had been silent, smilingly silent. Eve had dreaded⁴ being left alone with him, but now that she was alone with him, she found that the dread³ had passed.

 

“Will you come and see the gardens?”

 

“May I?”

 

He opened the gate and she passed through.

 

May was a month that Eve had missed at Fernhill, and it was one of the most opulent of months, the month of rhododendrons, azaleas, late tulips, anemones⁵, and Alpines⁶. Never since last year’s roses had she seen such colour, such bushes of fire, such quiet splendour. It was a beauty that overwhelmed and silenced; Oriental in some of its magnificence, yet wholly pure.

分享到：