A few bars of dusty gold hung poised across the darkening spaces of
the supper room. Ripples of the evening air, entering through the
windows, flowed over her, lifting the thick curling locks at the
nape of her neck, creeping forward over her shoulders and passing
along her round arms under the thin fabric of her sleeves.
They aroused her, these vanishing beams of the day, these arriving
breezes of the night; they became secret invitations to escape from
the house into the privacy of the garden, where she could be alone
with thoughts of her great happiness now fast approaching.
A servant entered noiselessly, bringing a silver bowl of frozen
cream. Beside this, at the head of the table before her
grandmother, he placed scarlet strawberries gathered that morning
under white dews. She availed herself of the slight interruption
and rose with an apology; but even when love bade her go, love also
bade her linger; she could scarce bear to be with them, but she
could scarce bear to be alone. She paused at her grandmother's
chair to stroke the dry bronze puffs on her temples--a unique
impulse; she hesitated compassionately a moment beside her aunt,
who had never married; then, passing around to the opposite side of
the table, she took between her palms the sunburnt cheeks of a
youth, her cousin, and buried her own tingling cheek in his hair.
Instinct at that moment drew her most to him because he was young
as she was young, having life and love before him as she had; only,
for him love stayed far in the future; for her it came to-night.
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