Did you ?" He laughed.

"Some of them were absurd, Shiela; the most abominably grotesque creatures came swarming and crowding around the bed--faces without bodies--creatures that grew while I looked at them, swelling to gigantic proportions--Oh, it was a merry carnival--" Neither spoke.

Her back was toward him as she knelt there very much occupied with her straying seedlings in the cool shade of the wall.
Jonquils in heavy golden patches stretched away into sun-flecked perspective broken by the cool silver-green of iris thickets and the white star-clusters of narcissus nodding under sprays of bleeding-heart.
The air was sweet with the scent of late apple-bloom and lilac--and Hamil, brooding there on his bench in the sun, clasped his thin hands over his walking-stick and bent his head to the fragrant memories of Calypso's own perfume--the lilac-odour of China-berry in bloom, under the Southern stars.
He drew his breath sharply, raising his head--because this sort of thing would not do to begin life with again.
"How is Louis ?" he asked in a pleasantly deliberate voice.
The thing had to be said sooner or later.

They both knew that.

It was over now, with no sign of effort, nothing in his voice or manner to betray him.