As John Bulmer leisurely ascended from the village the birds were waking.
Whether day were at hand or no was a matter of twittering debate overhead,
but in the west the stars were paling one by one, like candles puffed out
by the pretentious little wind that was bustling about the turquoise cupola
of heaven; and eastward Bellegarde showed stark, as though scissored from
a painting, against a sky of gray-and-rose. Here was a world of faint
ambiguity. Here was the exquisite tension of dawn, curiously a-chime with
John Bulmer's mood, for just now he found the universe too beautiful to put
any actual faith in its existence. He had strayed into Faëry somehow--into
Atlantis, or Avalon, or "a wood near Athens,"--into a land of opalescence
and vapor and delicate color, that would vanish, bubble-like, at the
discreet tap of Pawsey fetching in his shaving-water; meantime John
Bulmer's memory snatched at each loveliness, jealously, as a pug snatches
bits of sugar.
Beneath her window he paused and shifted his lute before him. Then he
began to sing, exultant in the unreality of everything and of himself in
particular.
Sang John Bulmer,
"Speed forth, my song, the sun's ambassador,
Lest in the east night prove the conqueror,
The day be slain, and darkness triumph,--for
The sun is single, but her eyes are twain.
"And now the sunlight and the night contest
A doubtful battle, and day bides at best
Doubtful, until she waken. 'Tis attest
The sun is single.
"But her eyes are twain,--
And should the light of all the world delay,
And darkness prove victorious? Is it day
Now that the sun alone is risen?
"Nay,
The sun is single, but her eyes are twain,--
Twain firmaments that mock with heavenlier hue
The heavens' less lordly and less gracious blue,
And lit with sunlier sunlight through and through,
"The sun is single, but her eyes are twain,
And of fair things this side of Paradise
Fairest, of goodly things most goodly,"
He paused here and smote a resonant and louder chord. His voice ascended in
dulcet supplication.
"Rise,
And succor the benighted world that cries,
_The sun is single, but her eyes are twain!_"
"Eh--? So it is you, is it?" Claire was peeping disdainfully from the
window. Her throat was bare, and her dusky hair was a shade dishevelled,
and in her meditative eyes he caught the flicker of her tardiest dream just
as it vanished.
"It is I," John Bulmer confessed--"come to awaken you according to the
ancient custom of Poictesme."
"I would much rather have had my sleep out," said she, resentfully. "In
perfect frankness, I find you and your ancient customs a nuisance."
"You lack romance, my wife."
"Oh--?" She was a person of many cryptic exclamations, this bride of his.
Presently she said: "Indeed, Monsieur Bulmer, I entreat you to leave
Poictesme. I have informed Louis of everything, and he is rather furious."
John Bulmer said, "Do you comprehend why I have not already played the
emigrant?"