A few mornings later he was looking through an upper back window over a
screened part of the garden. The door beneath him opened, and a figure
appeared tripping forth. She went round out of sight to where the
gardener was at work, and presently returned with a bunch of green stuff
fluttering in each hand. It was Avice, her dark hair now braided up
snugly under a cap. She sailed on with a rapt and unconscious face, her
thoughts a thousand removes from him.
How she had suddenly come to be an inmate of his own house he could
not understand, till he recalled the fact that he had given the castle
servants a whole holiday to attend a review of the yeomanry in the
watering-place over the bay, on their stating that they could provide a
temporary substitute to stay in the house. They had evidently called
in Avice. To his great pleasure he discovered their opinion of his
requirements to be such a mean one that they had called in no one else.
The Spirit, as she seemed to him, brought his lunch into the room where
he was writing, and he beheld her uncover it. She went to the window to
adjust a blind which had slipped, and he had a good view of her profile.
It was not unlike that of one of the three goddesses in Rubens's
'Judgment of Paris,' and in contour was nigh perfection. But it was in
her full face that the vision of her mother was most apparent.
'Did you cook all this, Avice?' he asked, arousing himself.