“Is it something in me, ma’am?” said Desmond, putting his head before my face so that it was hid from her.

“Something in both of you; thief! thief!”

She rubbed her frail hand against my sleeve, muttering, “See now, so!—­the same characteristics.”

“I spoke of the difference of the rooms; the one we were in reminded me of a lizard!  The walls were faint gray, and every piece of furniture was covered with plain yellow chintz, while the carpet was a pale green.  She replied that she always moved from her winter parlor to this summer room on the twenty-second day of April, which had fallen the day before, for she liked to watch the coming out of the shrubs in the garden, which were as old as herself.  The chestnut had leaved seventy times and more; and the crippled plum, whose fruit was so wormy to eat, was dying with age.  As for the elms at the bottom of the garden, for all she knew they were a thousand years old.

“The elms are a thousand years old,” I repeated and repeated to myself, while she glided from topic to topic with Desmond, whose conversation indicated that he was as cultivated as any ordinary gentleman, when the Pickersgill element was not apparent.  The form of the garden-goddess faded, the sun had gone below the garden wall.  The garden grew dusk, and the elms began to nod their tops at me.  I became silent, listening to the fall of the plummet, which dropped again and again from the topmost height of that lordly domain, over which shadows had come.  Were they sounding its foundations?

My eyes roved the garden, seeking the nucleus of an emotion which beset me now—­not they, but my senses, formed it—­in a garden miles away, where nodded a row of elms, under which Charles Morgeson stood.

“I am glad you’re here, my darling, do you smell the roses?”

“Are you going?” I heard Mrs. Hepburn say in a far-off voice.  I was standing by the door.

“Yes, madam; the summer parlor does not delay the sunset.”

“Come again.  When do you leave Belem?”

“In few days.”

Desmond made a grimace, and went to the window.

“Who returns with you,” she continued, “Ben?  He likes piloting.”

“I hope he will; I came here to please him.”

“Pooh!  You came here because Mr. Somers had a crotchet.”

“Well; I was permitted somehow to come.”

“It was perfectly right.  A woman like you need not question whether a thing is convenable.”

Desmond turned from the window, and bestowed upon her a benign smile, which she returned with a satisfied nod.

This implied flattery tinkled pleasantly on my ears, allaying a doubt which I suffered from.  Did I realize how much the prestige of those Belem saints influenced me, or how proud I was with the conviction of affiliation with those who were plainly marked with Caste?

“Walk with me,” he demanded, as we were going down the steps.