Anne perched herself upon a boulder and the Chevalier rested beside
her, while madame and the poet strolled a short distance away.
"Shall we ever see our dear Paris again, Gabrielle?" asked the poet.
"I hope so; and soon, soon!"
"How came you to sign that paper?"
"He would have broken my arm, else. How I hated him! Tricks,
subterfuges, lies, menaces; I was surrounded by them. And I believed
in so many things those early days!"
"How softly breathes this last, lingering ghost of summer," he said.
"How lovingly the pearls and opals and amethysts of heaven linger on
the crimsoning hills! See how the stream runs like a silver thread,
laughing and singing, to join the grave river. We can not see the
river from here, but we know how gravely it journeys to the sea. Can
you not smell the odor of mint, of earth, of the forest, and the water?
Hark! I hear a bird singing. There he goes, a yellow bird, a golden
rouleau of song. How the yellow flower stands out against the dark of
the grasses! It is all beautiful. It is the immortality in us which
nature enchants. See how the wooded lands fade and fade till they and
the heavens meet and dissolve! And all this is yours, Gabrielle, for
the seeing and the hearing.
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