Justin hurried off down the road. Laura waited a little while, looking
after him, ready to wave and smile if he should look back. He would have
seen, if he had been Oliver to perceive it, a pretty enough picture, for
the rockery behind her glowed like a Persian carpet, and she stood at
the gate between the copper-black hollyhocks, a _princesse lointaine_
among her Nubians, looking out so eagerly over the bars, hands half
raised for beckoning.
But Justin, even if he had thought of it, had not time to look back. As
it was, he barely escaped being late for his tea.
Laura, when the bend of the road had quite hidden him, gave, for all her
wistful last glances, a little sigh of relaxation. She had held him
while she could, and counted each moment a gain; yet she had wanted him
to go. Her instinct, standing godmother to her inexperience, put her on
her guard, would not allow her to show him the intensity of the
happiness he had created in her. Yet discretion was not easy, with the
lust of self-confession—that age-old familiar of a woman in love—playing
its devil’s game with her self-control. She wanted to be alone—she who
was Psyche in Olympus, the first draught of nectar driving dizzily
through her veins: she knew she must have breathing-pause, must for an
instant put down the inexhaustible cup, lest the immortal wine should
choke her.
She turned from the road, and swerving aside, like a shy beast, from the
eyes of the many-windowed house, sped down the warden paths to the
orchard, that immemorial play-ground, her kingdom of deep grass and
monstrous buttercups, an Avalon at whose corners oaks stood guardian,
whose brook-rooted bramble hedges, high and overhanging, walled it
impenetrably against the outer world.
She did not stay to secure the rickety gate, and it clicked and
cluttered behind her like a cracked bell as she ran on through the
sunshine and the grass to the little shady hollow beyond the apple trees
and there flung herself upon the ground, like a child dropping headlong
upon its mother’s lap.
And because she had no mother, and her heart was full, she turned in all
simplicity to her prayers. Overhead a lark was singing, and she
listened, her chin in her fists, her elbows digging into the soft earth,
her broken phrases swelling his ecstasy—
“_Almighty God, Father of all goodness—most humble and hearty thanks_——O
God, I am so utterly happy. If You only knew how grateful—how
grateful—_my creation and preservation and all the blessings of my
life_—because, of course, I see now, they were all blessings—Gran’papa
and being poor and everything, or I shouldn’t have known Justin. O God,
I do thank You so—for making Justin and for letting me know him and for
letting him care—_and for all Thy goodness and loving kindness to me and
all men_. I will be so good to him, God—I promise—I promise—I will
always be good now. O God, teach me to be good enough and to understand
him, so that he doesn’t get tired: _and I pray Thee give me that due
sense of all Thy mercies_——Yes, I have, I have that due sense and I will
show forth Thy praise, always, always—only please God, teach me to be
good enough that he may never be disappointed and that I may make him
happy, for Jesus Christ’s sake. _Amen._”
She ceased, exhausted by her own passion; but the lark’s song continued,
welling up untroubled like a spring of pure water, from the infinite
calm of the sky.
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