He sat there, a very solitary man, and his eyes wandered vaguely through
the open windows over the bewitched countryside, his gardens and his
park and his acres and his forests, shrouded all in a clear gloom as
though God was peering at them in the light of a taper. And the heavy
moon climbed the heavens. He saw the twisted shapes of tall flowers in
the garden, flowers he did not know, for his head-gardener was a man of
invention in August. And then, among the tall shapes of the August
flowers, he saw one in particular, and this one was the tallest among
them, and it moved. But he sat very still and solemn in his chair,
watching the shape of the moving flower, between him and the heavy moon.
And then it wavered and stood; for a long time it stood, a shadow in the
wan countryside. Perhaps it was afraid, all alone there among the
flowers. He watched. And then it was framed in the open window, a soft
slim shadow. But he did not move.
“What sort of a play is this,” he heard his voice ask, “in which a woman
goes away like a coward and comes back like a wraith?”
And into the room she came, and with a sigh she sat down in a chair by
the window.
“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “I am so tired....”
His heart was so torn with gladness that for a long time he could not
move, he could not speak. And then he walked across the room and stood
above her chair. She turned up her little face under the tiger-tawny
hair and smiled her funny crooked smile like a naughty fairy’s.
“Poor Aubrey!” she whispered. “Poor Gloria!...”
But he did not touch her.
“Listen, Gloria,” he whispered. “When I found you had gone, my life
cracked like an earthenware cup....” And Aubrey Carlyle stopped, amazed
by what he had said; for he had never said a thing like that before.
“And now,” he said, “you have mended it again.”
“Have I?” she cried queerly; and the weight of her eyes on him bore him
to his knees by her chair. He had not seen her for eight months, but
still he did not touch her.
“And _my_ life, Aubrey?”
“But your life is mine, Gloria! We are together!”
And Gloria, the soft, lovely Gloria smiled into his absorbed face....
“Of course,” she said. “Of course! An Englishman and his wife....”
But he was not listening.
“And did you know why, Aubrey?” she asked.
He shook his head. He had not seen her for eight months.
“I just thought you had gone mad, Gloria. Tell me, are you mad?”
“No, dear; I am very sane. And very tired.” And she said that in a voice
which seemed to come from the depths of a very deep bowl, the softest
voice that a man ever heard, and it broke the poise of his restraint. He
had not seen her for eight months. He was very strong, and a lawless
man. He carried her away into the depths of the room. She said nothing.