XIV
In the garden of tall rose-trees and nasturtiums Helena was again waiting. It was past nine o’clock, so she was growing impatient. To herself, however, she professed a great interest in a little book of verses she had bought in St. Martin’s Lane for twopence.
“A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings,
As through the glade, dim in the dark, she flew….”
So she read. She made a curious, pleased sound, and remarked to herself that she thought these verses very fine. But she watched the road for Siegmund.
“And now she takes the scissors on her thumb…
Oh then, no more unto my lattice come.”
“H’m!” she said, “I really don’t know whether I like that or not.”
Therefore she read the piece again before she looked down the road.
“He really is very late. It is absurd to think he may have got drowned; but if he were washing about at the bottom of the sea, his hair loose on the water!”
Her heart stood still as she imagined this.
“But what nonsense! I like these verses very much. I will read them as I walk along the side path, where I shall hear the bees, and catch the flutter of a
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