He
thought of himself as he was now, and of Ellen as she had been. The
memory of that visit to Garden Green seemed suddenly like a nightmare.
The memory of the train, underground for part of the way, with its
stuffy odors, made him shiver. The hot, dusty, unmade street, with its
hideous rows of stuccoed villas, loomed before his eyes and confirmed
his swiftly born disinclination to taking at once this final and ominous
step. Something all the time seemed to be drawing him in another
direction, the faint magic of a fragrant memory--a dream, was it--that
he had carried with him unconsciously through a wilderness of empty
days? He hesitated, and finally climbed up on to the garden seat of an
omnibus on its way to Victoria.
CHAPTER IX
THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
"I do not think," the girl with the blue eyes said, diffidently, "that I
gave you permission to sit down here."
"I do not believe," Burton admitted, "that I asked for it. Still,
having just saved your life--"
"Saved my life!"
"Without a doubt," Burton insisted, firmly. She laughed in his face.
When she laughed, she was good to look upon. She had firm white teeth,
light brown hair which fell in a sort of fringe about her forehead, and
eyes which could be dreamy but were more often humorous.
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