Part 20 (1/2)
Catherine felt the breath fluttering in her throat as she murmured,
”Your scheme is ready?”
”Yes. It's a great one. Berrand thinks so. I have written something of it to him. I am going to trace the downfall of a nature from n.o.bility to utter degradation.”
His eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, as he repeated in thrilling tones,
”Utter degradation.”
Catherine thought of the spring night, in which such holy preparations for joy were silently being carried on, of all the youthful things just coming into life. An inspiration came to her. She caught her husband's hand and drew him to the window.
”Pull up the blind, Mark,” she said.
He obeyed, smiling at her as if in wonder at this freak.
”Now open the window.”
”Yes, dear. There! What next?”
In front of the window there was a riband of pavement protected by an overhanging section of roof. Catherine stepped out on this pavement.
Mark followed her. They stood together facing the spring night. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and starlit. Nature seemed breathing quietly, like a thing alive but asleep. The surrounding woods were a dusky wall. The clearing was a vague sea of dew. And the air was full of that wonderful scent that all things seem to have in spring. It is like the perfume of life, of life that G.o.d has consecrated, of life that might have been in Eden. It is odorous with hope. It stings and embraces. It stirs the imagination to magic. It stirs the heart to tears. For it is ineffably beautiful and expectant.
”How delicious!” Mark said.
Catherine's hand tightened on his arm.
”The trees are talking,” he said. ”That damp scent comes from their roots, and the flowers and gra.s.ses round them.”
He drew in his breath with a gasp of pleasure.
”Yes?” Catherine said.
He bent down and touched the lawn with his hand.
”What a dew! Look, Kitty, there goes a rabbit!”
A hunched shadow suddenly flattened and vanished.
”Little beggar! He's gone into the wood. What a jolly time he and his relations must have.”
”Yes, Mark. Isn't the night happy, and the spring?”
He drew in his breath again.
”Yes.”
”Mark!”
”Well, dear?”