Then into the garden came Mary!
She was wrapped in a thin silken, scarlet cloak that belonged to
Constance. As she passed through the broad band of light made by the
street lamp. Roger had a sudden memory of the flame-like blossoming of
a certain slender shrub in the spring. It had been the first of the
flowers to bloom, and Mary had picked a branch for the vase on his
table in the Tower sitting-room.
"Constance wants you, Gordon," Mary said, as she came nearer; "some one
has called up to arrange about a dinner date, and she can't decide
without you."
She sat down on the stone bench, and Roger, who had risen at her
approach, stood under the hundred-leaved bush from which all the roses
were gone.
"Do you know," he said, without warning or preface, "that it seemed to
me that, as you came into the garden, it bloomed again."
Never before had he spoken thus. And he said it again. "When you
came, it was as if the garden bloomed."
He sat down beside her. "Is any one going to claim you right away?
Because if not, I have something I want to say."
"Nobody will claim me. At least I hope nobody will. Grace Clendenning
is telling Porter about the art of woman's dress. She takes clothes so
seriously, you know. And Porter is interested in spite of himself.
And Barry and Leila are on the terrace steps, looking at the moon over
the river, and Aunt Frances and Aunt Isabelle and General Dick are in
the house because of the night air, so there's really no one in the
garden but you and me."
"Just you--and--me----" he said, and stopped.
She was plainly puzzled by his manner. But she waited, her arms
wrapped in her red cloak.
At last he said, "Your brother-in-law and I went to school together."
"Gordon?"
"Yes. St. Martin's. He was younger than I, and we were not much
together. But I knew him. And after he had puzzled over it, he knew
me."
"How interesting."
"And he asked me something about myself, which I have never told you;
which I want to tell you now."
He was finding it hard to tell, with her eyes upon him, bright as stars.
"Your brother said he had heard that I had gone into the Church--that I
had a parish. And what he had heard was true. Until five years ago, I
was rector of a church in the South."