The little boys stepped forward at once, curiously, but Elly said, “No, oh no!” and backed off till she stood leaning against Toucle’s knee.  The old woman put her dark hand down gently on the child’s soft hair and smiled at her.  How curious it was to see that grim, battered old visage smile!  Elly was the only creature in the world at whom the old Indian ever smiled, indeed almost the only thing in the house which those absent old eyes ever seemed to see.  Marise remembered that Toucle had smiled when she first took the baby Elly in her arms.

* * * * *

A little murmur of talk arose now, from the assembled neighbors.  They stood up, moved about, exchanged a few laconic greetings, and began putting their wraps on.  Marise remembered that Mr. Welles had seemed tired and as soon as possible set her party in motion.

“Thank you so much, Nelly, for letting us know,” she said to the farmer’s wife, as they came away.  “It wouldn’t seem like a year in our valley if we didn’t see your cereus in bloom.”

She took Elly’s hand in one of hers, and with Mark on the other side walked down the path to the road.  The darkness was intense there, because of the gigantic pine-tree which towered above the little house.  “Are you there, Paul?” she called through the blackness.  The little boy’s voice came back, “Yes, with Toucle, we’re ahead.”  The two men walked behind.

Elly’s hand was hot and clasped her mother’s very tightly.  Marise bent over the little girl and divined in the darkness that she was crying.  “Why, Elly darling, what’s the matter?” she asked.

The child cried out passionately, on a mounting note, “Nothing, nothing! Nothing!” She flung her arms around her mother’s neck, straining her close in a wild embrace.  Little Mark, on the other side, yawned and staggered sleepily on his feet.  Elly gave her mother a last kiss, and ran on ahead, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to walk by myself!”

“Well!” commented the old gentleman.

Mr. Marsh had not been interested in this episode and had stood gazing admiringly up at the huge pine-tree, divining its bulk and mass against the black sky.

“Like Milton’s Satan, isn’t it?” was his comment as they walked on, “with apologies for the triteness of the quotation.”

For a time nothing was said, and then Marsh began, “Now I’ve seen it, your rite of the worship of beauty.  And do you know what was really there?  A handful of dull, insensitive, primitive beings, hardened and calloused by manual toil and atrophied imaginations, so starved for any variety in their stupefyingly monotonous life that they welcome anything, anything at all as a break . . . only if they could choose, they would infinitely prefer a two-headed calf or a bearded woman to your flower.  The only reason they go to see that is because it is a curiosity, not because of its beauty, because it blooms once a year only, at night, and because there is only one of them in town.  Also because everybody else goes to see it.  They go to look at it only because there aren’t any movies in Ashley, nor anything else.  And you know all this just as well as I do.”