He turned up his coat collar, thrust his hands in his pockets,
and swore softly. Looking straight ahead of him, he should have
seen a stretch of level sidewalk, bordered on one hand by lacy,
tropical foliage, on the other, by sheets of level green lawn,
broken everywhere by the uprising boles of great trees, clumps of
rare vines, and rows of darkened homes, attractive in
architectural
_,
design' vine covered, hushed for the night. What he really saw
was a small plateau, sun illumined, at the foot of a mountain
across the valley, where the lilac wall was the bluest, where the
sun shone slightly more golden than anywhere else in the valley,
where huge live oaks outstretched rugged arms, where the air had
a tang of salt, a tinge of sage, an odor of orange, shot through
with snowy coolness, thrilled with bird song, and the laughing
chuckle of a big spring breaking from the foot of the mountain.
They had left the road and followed a narrow, screened path by
which they came unexpectedly into this opening. They had stood
upon it in wordless enchantment, looking down the slope beneath
it, across the peace of the valley, to the blue ranges beyond.
"Just where are we?" Peter Morrison had asked at last.
John Gilman had been looking at a view which included Eileen.
She lifted her face, flushed and exquisite, to Peter Morrison and
answered in a breathless undertone, yet John had distinctly heard
her:
"How wonderful it would be if we were at your house.
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