"
And Rodriguez took his words literally, though his host had meant
no more than what we should call "one of these days," but
Rodriguez was being consumed with a great impatience. And so they
arranged it, and Don Alderon went to bed with a feeling, which is
favourable to dreams, that on the next day they went upon an
adventure; for neither he nor anyone in that village had entered
Shadow Valley.
Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with
something of the romance of the garden gone, for Dona Mirana
walked there too; and romance is like one of those sudden,
wonderful colours that flash for a moment out of a drop of dew; a
passing shadow obscures them; and ask another to see it, and the
colour is not the same: move but a yard and the ray of enchantment
is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of that garden, but she saw
it from thirty years away; it was all different what she saw, all
changed from a certain day (for love was love in the old days):
and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could not see
romance at all, and somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyes
seemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that other
evening.
And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with her
brother to see about the affairs of his castle, and that they
would return in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those
affairs might not prosper, for he trusted the word of the King of
Shadow Valley.
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