“What a queer little world!” she whispered.  “You and I here!—­I never dreamed you could be funny.  It made me so proud of you, down there!”

He muttered something vague; and—­the stairs ending in ruin at the fourth story—­handed her carefully through the window to a small outer balustrade.  As they stood together at the rail, he knew not whether to be angry, suspicious, or glad.

“I love this prospect,” she began quietly.  “That’s why I wanted you to come.”

Beyond the camphors, a wide, strange landscape glowed in the full, low-streaming light.  The ocean lay a sapphire band in the east; in the west, on a long ridge, undulated the gray battlements of a city, the antique walls, warmed and glorified, breasting the flood of sunset.  All between lay vernal fields and hillocks, maidenhair sprays of bamboo, and a wandering pattern of pink foot-paths.  Slowly along one of these, a bright-gowned merchant rode a white pony, his bells tinkling in the stillness of sea and land.  Everywhere, like other bells more tiny and shrill, sounded the trilling of frogs.

As the two on the pagoda stood listening,—­

“It was before Rome,” she declared thoughtfully.  “Before Egypt, and has never changed.  You and I are just—­” She broke off, humming:—­

“Only here and now?  Behold
They were the same in years of old!”

Her mood colored the scene:  the aged continuity of life oppressed him.  Yet he chose rather to watch the straggling battlements, far off, than to meet her eyes or see her hair gleaming in the sun.  Through many troubled days he had forgotten her, despised her, bound his heart in triple brass against a future in her hateful neighborhood; and now, beside her at this time-worn rail, he was in danger of being happy.  It was inglorious.  He tried to frown.

“You poor boy.”  Suddenly, with an impulse that must have been generous, she rested her hand on his arm.  “I was sorry.  I thought of you so often.”

At these close quarters, her tremulous voice and searching upward glance meant that she alone understood all his troubles.  He started, turned for some rush of overwhelming speech, when a head popped through the window behind them.

“Boot and saddle, Mrs. Forrester,” announced Heywood.  His lean young face was very droll and knowing.  “We’re leaving, bottom-side.”

“Thank you so much, Maurice,” she answered, perhaps dryly.  “You’re a dear, to climb all those dreadful stairs.”

“Oh!” said Heywood, with his gray eyes fastened on Rudolph, “no trouble.”

All three went down the dark well together.

When the company were mounted, and trooping downhill through the camphor shadow, Heywood’s pony came sidling against Rudolph’s, till legging chafed legging.

“You blossomed, old boy,” he whispered.  “Quite the star, after your comedy turn.”  He reined aside, grinning.  “What price sympathy on a pagoda?”