John would not
have been surprised to see a goat-foot piping his way among the trees
or to catch a glimpse of pink nymph-skin and flying yellow hair
between the greenest of the green leaves.
In some such cool hope he descended the marble steps, disturbing
faintly the sleep of two silky Russian wolfhounds at the bottom, and
set off along a walk of white and blue brick that seemed to lead in no
particular direction.
He was enjoying himself as much as he was able. It is youth's felicity
as well as its insufficiency that it can never live in the present,
but must always be measuring up the day against its own radiantly
imagined future--flowers and gold, girls and stars, they are only
prefigurations and prophecies of that incomparable, unattainable young
dream.
John rounded a soft corner where the massed rosebushes filled the air
with heavy scent, and struck off across a park toward a patch of moss
under some trees. He had never lain upon moss, and he wanted to see
whether it was really soft enough to justify the use of its name as an
adjective. Then he saw a girl coming toward him over the grass. She
was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.
She was dressed in a white little gown that came just below her knees,
and a wreath of mignonettes clasped with blue slices of sapphire bound
up her hair. Her pink bare feet scattered the dew before them as she
came.
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