--This is what it is
to come back to the home of your infancy.'
Andre, in his awful best cassock, was waiting on the terrace. It was
on the terrace that Paul had ordered luncheon to be served. The
terrace at Saint-Graal is a very jolly place. It stretches the whole
length of the southern facade of the house, and is generously broad.
It is paved with great lozenge-shaped slabs of marble, stained in
delicate pinks and greys with lichens; and a marble balustrade
borders it, overgrown, the columns half uprooted and twisted from the
perpendicular, by an aged wistaria-vine, with a trunk as stout as a
tree's. Seated there, one can look off over miles of richly-timbered
country, dotted with white-walled villages, and traversed by the Nive
and the Adour, to the wry masses of the Pyrenees, purple curtains
hiding Spain.
Here, under an awning, the table was set, gay with white linen and
glistening glass and silver, a centrepiece of flowers and jugs of red
and yellow wine. The wistaria was in blossom, a world of colour and
fragrance, shaken at odd moments by the swift dartings of innumerable
lizards. The sun shone hot and clear; the still air, as you touched
it, felt like velvet.
'Oh, what a heavenly place, what a heavenly day,' cried Paul; 'it only
needs a woman.' And then, meeting Andre's eye, he caught himself up,
with a gesture of contrition.
Pages:
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159