Certainly he could not contemplate the possibility of doing without her.  He had loved her that much for years.  Within the last day or two he had loved her twice that much.  And now the moonlight showed him his love enthroned above all his lesser loves—­a thing of heaven, where they were of the earth—­consecrated a great passion, to lift him out of himself.  He sat and smoked, spiritually bemused, his brain running like a fountain with melodies of music and poetry, notes and words that sang in his ears and murmured on his lips without his hearing them.  So a distant curlew thrilled him to a more ecstatic melancholy with its call through the moon-transfigured world, and he did not notice it.  All the influences of the gentle night contributed to his inspired mood, but Love was the first violin in that orchestra under Nature’s conductorship—­Nature, whose hour it was, walking, a god, in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day.

And here came Deb, gliding towards him by a path that he could not see, holding her lace skirts tightly bunched in her nervous hands.  Youth to youth, beauty to beauty, man to woman, woman to man, the magnet to the steel—­they were just elements of the elements, for once in their lives.

“How fortunate that I put on black tonight,” thought Deb, as she pursued her stealthy way at the back of bushes—­“and something that does not rustle!”

“How beautiful she was tonight!” thought Claud.  “How a dark dress throws up that superb neck of hers!  I’ll take her to Europe, and show her to the sculptors and painters; but where’s the hand that could carve that shape, or the paint that could give her colour?  I’ll have a London season with her, and see her snuff out the milk-and-water debutantes.  No milk-and-water about Deb—­wine and fire!—­and withal so proud and unapproachable.  That hulking brute imagines—­but he’ll find his mistake if he attempts to cross the line.  Beauty, passion, purity—­what a blend!  She’s a woman alone—­the blue rose of women—­ and she is mine.”  He murmured, to some cadence of a Schubert serenade:  “My Deb!  My love!  My love!  My queen!” and suddenly stopped short in his musings.

Her foot crunched the gravel behind him.  Without turning his head, he sat alertly motionless for several minutes, listening, holding his breath.  Then he dropped his cigar gently.

“Fine night, Deb,” he remarked aloud.

There was no immediate answer, but presently a low chuckle from the laurel bushes.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked, imitating his casual tone.

“Couldn’t explain, I’m sure.  It was borne in on me, somehow.”

“You did not see me.”

“I don’t want to see, in your case.  I feel you.”

There was another brief silence, and then she rustled off a step or two.

“Well, good-night!  I just came out to look for a book I left here somewhere.”

“What book?” “It doesn’t matter.  It is too late to read tonight, anyhow.”