All that evening, something which he had not been conscious of
noticing especially when it was present to him--certainly he
had paid no conscious attention to its details--kept recurring
and recurring to Peter's memory: the appearance of the
prettily-arranged terrace-end at Ventirose: the white awning,
with the blue sky at its edges, the sunny park beyond; the
warm-hued carpets on the marble pavement; the wicker chairs,
with their bright cushions; the table, with its books and
bibelots--the yellow French books, a tortoise-shell paperknife,
a silver paperweight, a crystal smelling-bottle, a bowlful of
drooping poppies; and the marble balustrade, with its delicate
tracery of leaves and tendrils, where the jessamine twined
round its pillars.
This kept recurring, recurring, vividly, a picture that he
could see without closing his eyes, a picture with a very
decided sentiment. Like the gay and gleaming many-pinnacled
facade of her house, it seemed appropriate to her; it seemed in
its fashion to express her.
Nay, it seemed to do more. It was
a corner of her every-day environment; these things were the
companions, the witnesses, of moments of her life, phases of
herself, which were hidden from Peter; they were the companions
and witnesses of her solitude, her privacy; they were her
confidants, in a way. They seemed not merely to express her,
therefore, but to be continually on the point--I had almost
said of betraying her. At all events, if he could only
understand their silent language, they would prove rich in
precious revelations. So he welcomed their recurrences, dwelt
upon them, pondered them, and got a deep if somewhat
inarticulate pleasure from them.
On Thursday, as he approached the castle, the last fires of
sunset were burning in the sky behind it--the long irregular
mass of buildings stood out in varying shades of blue, against
varying, dying shades of red: the grey stone, dark, velvety
indigo; the pink stucco, pink still, but with a transparent
blue penumbra over it; the white marble, palely, scintillantly
amethystine. And if he was interested in her environment, now
he could study it to his heart's content: the wide marble
staircase, up which he was shown, with its crimson carpet, and
the big mellow painting, that looked as if it might be a
Titian, at the top; the great saloon, in which he was received,
with its polished mosaic floor, its frescoed ceiling, its
white-and-gold panelling, its hangings and upholsteries of
yellow brocade, its satinwood chairs and tables, its bronzes,
porcelains, embroideries, its screens and mirrors; the long
dining-hall, with its high pointed windows, its slender marble
columns supporting a vaulted roof, its twinkling candles in
chandeliers and sconces of cloudy Venetian glass, its brilliant
table, its flowers and their colours and their scents.