AT sunrise a great peacock trailing his imperial purple on the edge of a
smooth lawn, pecked angrily at a torn fragment of a scarlet scarf; a
scarf that had been woven in his own Eastern lands, but which incensed
his sight, fluttering there so idly, as it seemed, on the feathery
sprays of a little low almond-tree that grew by the water's edge.
The water was broad, and full of lily-leaves and of rare reeds and
rushes; it had been so stemmed and turned by art that it washed the
basement walls and mirrored the graceful galleries and arches of the
garden palace, where the bird of Hêrê dwelt.
Twenty feet above the level of the gardens, where the peacock swept in
the light, there was an open casement, a narrow balcony of stone; a
group of pale human faces looking out awe-stricken. A leap in the
night--the night wet and moonless,--waters a fathom deep,--a bed of sand
treacherous and shifting as the ways of love. What could all these be
save certain death? Of death they were afraid; but they were more afraid
yet of the vengeance of their flute-voiced lord.
On the wall the Red Mouse sat among the flowers of sleep; he could have
told; he who for once had heard another prayer than the blasphemies of
the Brocken.
But the Red Mouse never tells any secret to men; he has lived too long
in the breast of the women whom men love.
The Sun came from the east, and passed through the pale stricken faces
that watched from the casement, and came straight to where the Red Mouse
sat amidst the poppies.
"Have you let a female soul escape you?" said the Sun.
The Red Mouse answered:
"Love is stronger than I. When he keeps his hands pure, where he guards
the door of the soul, I enter not. I sit outside and watch, and watch,
and watch. But it is time lost. Love is strong; the door is barred to
me."
Said the Sun:
"That is strange to hear. My sister, the Moon, has told me oftentimes
that Eros is your pander--always."
"Anteros only," said the Red Mouse.
The Sun, wondering, said again:
"And yet I have heard that it is your boast that into every female soul
you enter at birth, and dwell there unto death. Is it, then, not so?"
The Red Mouse answered:
"The boast is not mine; it is man's."