ening stealing in from the wild places, from darkening
azaleas upon distant hills, still found them in the garden, found
Rodriguez singing in idleness undisguised, or anxiously helping in some
trivial task, tying up some tendril that had gone awry, helping some
magnolia that the wind had wounded. Almost unnoticed by him the
sunlight would disappear, and the coloured blaze of the sunset, and
then the gloaming; till the colours of all the flowers queerly changed
and they shone with that curious glow which they wear in the dusk. They
returned then to the house, the garden behind them with its dim hushed
air of a secret, before them the candlelight like a different land. And
after the evening meal Alderon and Rodriguez would sit late together
discussing the future of the world, Rodriguez holding that it was
intended that the earth should be ruled by Spain, and Alderon fearing
it would all go to the Moors.

Days passed thus.

And then one evening Rodriguez was in the garden with Serafina; the
flowers, dim and pale and more mysterious than ever, poured out their
scent towards the coming night, luring huge hawk-moths from the far
dusk that was gathering about the garden, to hover before each bloom on
myriad wingbeats too rapid for human eye: another inch and the fairies
had peeped out from behind azaleas, yet both of these late loiterers
felt fairies were surely there: it seemed to be Nature's own most
secret hour, upon which man trespasses if he venture forth from his
house: an owl from his hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttered
a clear call once to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did not
heed, but walked in silence.

He had played his mandolin. It had uttered to the solemn hush of the
understanding evening all it was able to tell; and after that cry,
grown piteous with so many human longings, for it was an old mandolin,
Rodriguez felt there was nothing left for his poor words to say. So he
went dumb and mournful.

Serafina would have heard him had he spoken, for her thoughts vibrated
yet with the voice of the mandolin, which had come to her hearing as an
ambassador from Rodriguez, but he found no words to match with the
mandolin's high mood. His eyes said, and his sighs told, what the
mandolin had uttered; but his tongue was silent.

And then Serafina said, as he walked all heavy with silence past a
curving slope of dimly glowing azaleas, "You like flowers, senor?"

"Senorita, I adore them," he replie