Page:Son of the wind.djvu/251

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ET DEAM VIDIMUS

was not, Carron found these as unsympathetic as certain New England exotics he remembered returning from Paris to Connecticut with their lovely eyes filled with the wonder of Parisian shops, the language of the city soft on their tongues, their hearts lodging houses for the latest foreign fancy.

It was the woman of the cultivated soul who had taken him; she, who knew how to make herself his ally, pet him out of his shynesses, laugh him out of his vanities, sit at his feet and look up at his strength, draw out of the recesses of his mood shrewd music that he himself had not suspected. Five days they had had; and Love, who is fond of putting five days into five minutes, had shown them, if not herself from head to foot, at least the full splendor of her face. That instantaneous knowledge was of the heart. It had come first, which commonly is the final revelation. There remained to discover the hundred lesser knowledges of the mind, and the charm of the days which followed was partly this becoming acquainted with each other backward.

The season of arranging the hotel was done, furniture shrouded and doors closed. The greater house assumed an intense repose; and Blanche, released from its tyrannies, became a creature of the out-of-doors. The later summer stood at the full above

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