Once
more he felt himself a householder in the Arabian tales.
And yet, when his life was growing all but placid, across it shot some
tremor of disquieting knowledge.
One evening, after a busy day among his piece-goods, he had walked
afield with Heywood, and back by an aimless circuit through the
twilight. His companion had been taciturn, of late; and they halted,
without speaking, where a wide pool gleamed toward a black, fantastic
belt of knotted willows and sharp-curving roofs. Through these broke the
shadow of a small pagoda, jagged as a war-club of shark's teeth. Vesper
cymbals clashed faintly in a temple, and from its open door the first
plummet of lamplight began to fathom the dark margin. A short bridge
curved high, like a camel's hump, over the glimmering half-circle of a
single arch. Close by, under a drooping foreground of branches, a stake
upheld an oblong placard of neat symbols, like a cartouche to explain
a painting.
"It is very beautiful," ventured Rudolph, twisting up his blond
moustache with satisfaction. "Very sightly. I would say--picturesque, no?"
"Very," said Heywood, absently. "Willow Pattern."
"And the placard, so finishing, so artistic--That says?"
"Eh, what? Oh, I wasn't listening." Heywood glanced carelessly at the
upright sentence. That's a notice:--
"'Girls May Not be Drowned in This Pond.'"
He started on, without comment. Without reply, Rudolph followed,
gathering as he walked the force of this tremendous hint. Slow,
far-reaching, it poisoned the elegiac beauty of the scene, alienated the
night, and gave to the fading country-side a yet more ancient look,
sombre and implacable. He was still pondering this, when across their
winding foot-path, with a quick thud of hoofs, swept a pair of
equestrian silhouettes. It was half glimpse, half conjecture,--the tough
little ponies trotting stubbornly, a rider who leaned across laughing,
and a woman who gayly cried at him: "You really do understand me, don't
you?" The two jogging shadows melted in the bamboo tracery, like things
blown down the wind. But for years Rudolph had known the words, the
laugh, the beguiling cadence, and could have told what poise of the head
went with them, what dangerous glancing light. Suddenly, without reason,
he felt a gust of rage. It was he that understood. It was to him these
things belonged. The memory of her weakness was lost in the shining
memory of her power. He should be riding there, in the dusk o
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