" Across the well-kept lawn there brooded no shadow of
Old-World cedar; no century-old espaliers divided flower and kitchen
ground; no box-edging of the early Hanoverian era bordered the beds of
roses and mignonette. From one boundary-wall to the other there was not a
bush old enough to hang an association upon. The stereotyped bed of
flaming yellow calceolaria balanced the conventional bed of flaming
crimson verbena; the lavender heliotrope faced the scarlet geranium, like
the four corners in a quadrille. The garden was the modern nurserymen's
ideal of suburban horticulture, and no more. But to Valentine this
half-acre of smooth lawn and Wimbledon gravel pathway had seemed fair as
those pleasure gardens of Semiramis, at the foot of the Bagistanos
mountain, the fame whereof tempted Alexander to turn aside from the
direct road, during his march from Chelone to the Nysaic horse pastures.
To-day the contemplation of that commonplace garden gave him direful
pain. Should he ever walk there again with his dear love, or in any other
garden upon earth?
And then he thought of fairer gardens, in supernal regions whither his
soul was slow to travel. "Not easy is the journey from earth to the
stars," says the sage; and from this young wanderer the stain of earthly
travel had yet to be washed away.
"If she is taken from me, shall I ever be pure enough to follow her?" he
asked himself.
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