And a little later, when the ladies had retired, Don Alderon told
Rodriguez over the wine, with which he had tried to cheer his
forlorn companion, that it was arranged that he should marry
Serafina. And when Rodriguez lamented that this was impossible he
replied that the King of Shadow Valley wished it. And when
Rodriguez heard this his astonishment equalled his happiness, for
he marvelled that Don Alderon should not only believe that strange
man's unsupported promise, but that he should even obey him as
though he held him in awe.
And on the next day Rodriguez spoke with Dona Mirana as they
walked in the glory of the garden. And Dona Mirana gave him her
consent as Don Alderon had done: and when Rodriguez spoke humbly
of postponement she glanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley, as
though she too feared the strange man who ruled over the forest
which she had never entered.
And so it was that Rodriguez walked with his lady, with the sweet
Serafina in that garden again. And walking there they forgot the
need of house or land, forgot Shadow Valley with its hopes and its
doubts, and all the anxieties of the thoughts that we take for the
morrow: and when evening came and the birds sang in azaleas, and
the shadows grew solemn and long, and winds blew cool from the
blazing bed of the Sun, into the garden now all strange and still,
they forgot our Earth and, beyond the mundane coasts, drifted on
dreams of their own into aureate regions of twilight, to wander in
lands wherein lovers walk briefly and only once.
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