In the vestibule of the Emperors the guardian waited patiently.  He was not accustomed to visitors who lingered on like these two English, when the light was failing, and surely it must be difficult, if not impossible, to see the statues properly.  But Rosamund, with her usual lack of all effort, had captivated him.  He had grown accustomed to her visits; he was even flattered by them.  It pleased him subtly to have in his care a treasure such as the Hermes, to see which beautiful women, the Rosamunds of the world, traveled from far-off countries.  Rosamund’s perpetual, and prolonged, visits had made him feel more important than he had ever succeeded in feeling before.  Let the night come, she might stay on there, if she chose.  He took very little account of Dion.  But Rosamund was beginning to assume a certain vital importance in his quiet life.

The green light faded into a very dim primrose; the music of the sheep-bells drew near and died away among the small houses of the hamlet at the foot of the hill of Drouva; Elis withdrew itself into the obscurity that would last till the late coming of the waning moon.  Of Hermes and Dionysos now only the attitudes could be seen faintly.  But even they told of a golden age, an age from which everything ugly, everything violent, everything unseemly, everything insincere, everything cruel was blotted out—­an age of serenity of body and soul, the age of the long peace.

“He’s gone,” said Dion at last.

Rosamund got up slowly.

“You think he’s taken away the child because of us?”

There was an almost pathetic sound in her voice, but there was a smile in it too.

“You remember my stupid remark?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t stupid.  I think those who dare to have a child ought to keep very near to the world Hermes walks in.  They mayn’t wear wings on their sandals, but the earth oughtn’t to hold their feet too fast.  Hermes has taught me.”

“No one could ever want to take a child away from you,” he answered.

In the vestibule of the Emperors they bade good-by to the guardian of the Museum, and made him understand that on the morrow they would be gone.

As he looked at Dion’s gift he felt for a moment almost depressed.  He was accustomed to his constant visitor.  Surely he would miss her.  She smiled on him with her warm and very human cordiality for the last time, and went away, with her companion, into the dimness towards the hill of Drouva.  Then the guardian pulled the great door.  It closed with a final sound.  The key was turned.  And Hermes was left untroubled in that world where wings grow out of the sandals.

BOOK II —­ ECHO

CHAPTER I

Robin, whose other name was Gabriel, arrived at the “little house,” of which Rosamund had spoken to Dion upon the hill of Drouva, early in the following year, on the last night of February to be exact.  For a long time before his coming his future home had been subtly permeated by an atmosphere of expectancy.