ep--not the sleep of night but of the
siesta, when the dreams come out of the sun, and descend through the
deep-blue corridors to visit those who are weary in the gold. Rosamund,
bareheaded, stood on the hill of Drouva and gazed towards the sea; her
arm was round her olive tree; she looked marvelously well, lithe and
strong, but her face was grave, held even a hint of sadness.

"Our last day here!" she said to Dion. "One more night with the stars,
only one! Dion, when you brought me here, you did a dangerous thing."

"Gave you opportunities for regret? D'you mean that?"

She nodded, still gazing towards Zante.

"Such opportunities!"

"It couldn't be helped. I had to bring you."

"Of course. I know. If you had let me leave Greece without coming here,
and I had ever come to understand what I had missed, I don't believe I
could have forgiven even you."

"I always meant to bring you here."

"But you had a sudden impulse, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Why exactly did it come?"

He hesitated. Suddenly he felt reserved; but he broke through his
reserve and answered:

"I saw I had made you feel sad."

"Did you? Why was that?"

"Don't you remember?"

She was catching the dream of the plain, perhaps, for she replied, with
an almost preoccupied air:

"I don't think so."

"I wanted to make you happy again, very happy, to give you a treat as
quickly as possible. The idea of this"--he flung out a brown hand--"came
to me suddenly. That's how it was. You--you don't know how I wish to
keep every breath of sorrow out of your life."

"I know you do; I feel it. But you've put a sorrow in."

She spoke with a half-whimsical smile.

"Have I?"

"The sorrow of leaving all this, of leaving the Hermes. I didn't know
it was possible to grow to care for a lifeless thing as I care for
him. Sometimes I believe the marble has actually retained nothing of
Praxiteles as a man. I mean as apart from a sculptor. But he must have
been full of almost divine feelings and conceptions, or he could never
have made my Hermes. No man can make the divine without having divinity
in him. I've learnt more here in these few days than I have learnt in
all my years."

"From the statue of a Pagan. Isn't that strange?"

"No, I don't think so. For I was able to see the Christianity in it. I
know what Praxiteles was only able to feel mysteriously. Sometimes in
London I've heard people--you know the sort of people I mean--regretting
they didn't live i