The very leaves by the roadside were fragrant as
flowers.
For the moment it sufficed to know that she was loved, and that she
loved. She was no fool. At the back of all her wonder lay the certainty
that in the world's eyes such love as hers was absurd; that it must end
where it began; that Raoul could never be hers, nor she escape from a
captivity as real as his. But, perhaps because she knew all this so
certainly, she could put it aside. This thing had come to her: this
happiness to which, alone, in darkness, depressed by every look into
the mirror, by every casual proof that her brothers and intimates
accepted the verdict as final, her soul had been loyal--a forgotten
servant of a neglectful lord. In the silence of her own room, in her
garden, in the quiet stir of household duties, and again during the
long evenings while she sat knitting by the fire and her brothers
talked, she had pondered much upon love and puzzled herself with many
questions. She had watched girls and their lovers, wives and their
husbands. Can love (she had asked) draw near and pass and go its way
unrecognised? She had conned the signs. Now the hour had come, and she
had needed none of her learning--eyes, hands, and voice, she had
known the authentic god.
And she knew that it was not absurd; she knew herself worthy of love's
belated condescension--not Raoul's; for the moment she scarcely
thought of Raoul; for the moment Raoul's image grew faint and
indefinite in the glory of being loved.
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