Afterwards, Burton
walked with his young hostess in the old-fashioned walled garden.
She treated him with the easy informality of privileged intimacy. She
had accepted him as belonging, notwithstanding his damaging statements
as to his antecedents, and he walked by the side of his divinity without
a trace of awkwardness or nervousness. This world of Truth was indeed a
world of easy ways! . . . The garden was fragrant with perfumes; the
perfume of full-blown roses--great pink and yellow and white blossoms,
drooping in clusters from trees and bushes; of lavender from an ancient
bed; of stocks--pink and purple; of sweetbriar, growing in a hedge
beyond. They walked aimlessly about along the gravel paths and across
the deep greensward, and Burton knew no world, nor thought of any, save
the world of that garden. But the girl, when they reached the boundary,
leaned over the iron gate and her eyes were fixed northwards. It was
the old story--she sighed for life and he for beauty. The walls of her
prison-house were beautiful things, but not even the lichen and the moss
and the peaches which already hung amber and red behind the thick leaves
could ever make her wholly forget that they were, in a sense,
symbolical--the walls of her life.
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