"
"I did not know," she said, "that you had travelled so far."
"I found it here," he said, "under your balcony."
"Perchance I let it fall," said she. "It was idle of me."
"I guard it still," he said, and drew forth that worn brown rose.
"It was idle of me," said Serafina.
But then in that scented garden among the dim lights of late
evening the ghost of that rose introduced their spirits one to the
other, so that the listening flowers heard Rodriguez telling the
story of his heart, and, bending over the shell-bordered path,
heard Serafina's answer; and all they seemed to do was but to
watch the evening, with leaves uplifted in the hope of rain.
Film after film of dusk dropped down from where twilight had been,
like an army of darkness slowly pitching their tents on ground
that had been lost to the children of light. Out of the wild lands
all the owls flew nearer: their long, clear cries and the huge
hush between them warned all those lands that this was not man's
hour. And neither Rodriguez nor Serafina heard them.
In pale blue sky where none had thought to see it one smiling star
appeared. It was Venus watching lovers, as men of the crumbled
centuries had besought her to do, when they named her so long ago,
kneeling upon their hills with bended heads, and arms stretched
out to her sweet eternal scrutiny. Beneath her wandering rays as
they danced down to bless them Rodriguez and Serafina talked low
in the sight of the goddess, and their voices swayed through the
flowers with whispers and winds, not troubling the little wild
creatures that steal out shy in the dusk, and Nature forgave them
for being abroad in that hour; although, so near that a single
azalea seemed to hide it, so near seemed to beckon and whisper old
Nature's eldest secret.
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