Part 15 (1/2)

He did not have an opportunity of speaking with her alone till after tea. Then, when they had all gone into the garden--how it happened he did not know, for he would not have dared arrange it--he found himself walking down the path towards the copse with Miss Pickering, while behind them, quite far already behind them, Mrs. Pickering paused and exclaimed over the herbaceous border, Mr. Carew beside her. Mrs. Carew and Mrs. Pomfrey had sat down under the trees near the house.

”Would you like to see the pink foxgloves growing?” he asked her. ”They are very beautiful growing--more beautiful, I think you'll feel, than in the house.”

”I'd love to see them,” said Miss Pickering.

They crossed the slip of meadow among the tall gra.s.ses and, ”There,”

said Aubrey, pointing, with a faint smile, ”there they are!”

”_How_ sweet!” said Miss Pickering, with her serene emphasis. They stood to look.

”Do you know,” said Aubrey, wondering at himself, but he felt upborne, ”that I find they look like you--the pink ones.”

”Really?” She smiled now, turning her calm, blue eyes upon him. ”That's very flattering.”

”No, no; not flattering; not at all flattering,” said Aubrey. ”Not at all, not at all,” he repeated under his breath. He could say no more just then. They walked on, his heart in a flutter.

”Have you ever heard a willow-wren, Miss Pickering?” he asked suddenly.

”A willow-wren? I don't think so. I don't know much about birds.”

”It is usually singing in the wood at this hour. Would you care to come and see if we can hear it?”

”I'd love to. I wish you'd teach me all about birds,” said Miss Pickering.

His heart was thumping now. They entered the copse. It seemed to him, as they pa.s.sed them, that the foxgloves were tall angels set about Paradise and welcoming him there. It was very still among the trees. Miss Pickering walked lightly beside him. She, too, looked like an angel.

They reached a clearing, where an old fallen log lay, and here they sat down. ”We shall hear it, I think,” said Aubrey, ”if we sit here quietly.”

Presently, in the stillness, the little bird began to sing its song, the descending chromatic chain of liquid notes, melancholy and happy; the song of his very soul, Aubrey felt, and that the bird said for him all that he could not say as, with head bent, he sat listening, the beloved presence beside him. She was part of the song; and in it, as they listened together, their very hearts were mingling. They knew each other, he felt sure, very well.

”How sweet!” she murmured, and he nodded, not able to look at her.

There was a silence, and then the bird sang again. He raises his eyes to hers now, and they turned to him and smiled. Her hand lay on the rough bark of the log, and his was near it. Was it her hand that responded to the unconscious appeal of his, or had he dared? He held it. That was the bewildering, the transcending fact.

”Oh, Miss Pickering! Miss Leila--Leila,” he stammered. ”May I tell you?

May I ask you? Can you care for me?”

Her eyes still smiled, if very gravely. ”Do you really love me?” she murmured.

”Oh, Leila!” he repeated. The willow-wren still sang, but all the little chains of sound seemed to be woven into a mist about him, trembling, s.h.i.+ning. He held her hand to his lips. He wished to kneel before her.

This was Paradise.

”It's so very sudden,” said Leila Pickering. ”I never dreamed you cared till just now.”

”Ever since I saw you first--ever since I saw your eyes. It has been like the fragrance of my flowers at evening, like the moon rising on my flowers. I did not dare to hope--you so young, so lovely;--life before you.”

”I think we can be very happy together,” said Leila Pickering. ”I knew you were a dear from the first moment I saw you, too.”