20
NOW Ambrose gives an evening picture—an evening of emerald and fire. They have come back to the Pavilion, the wind has fallen, and Lychnis and Ruby are walking with him in the mazy paths of the bamboo-forest. The walls of bamboo curl over their heads like breakers under a flaring sky, and now and then, at some last fierce puff of the gale, there is a splutter of green foam. Ahead of them are the hills, like rollers darkening and lightening on a horizon of sea. And low down in the west rides the round sun, breaking in upon them through the leaves—inquisitive, unescapable, like the face of the goat-rider. It was Ruby (the red tinge of her hair and the peony colour of her robe making a sharp, exquisite chord with the bamboo green) who made that comparison. She was really restless under the sun’s stare. “I thought we should be safe here,” she said.
“Safe? Safe from what?” asked Lychnis (in purple and deep violet).
“From that face.”
“Oh, I thought you meant safe from ... from other things. Safe with old Ambrose. Safe, I mean, from the strain of people always pulling at you, attracting you, trying to get you.”
“I don’t mind that so much. But I didn’t like that man on the goat, who looked at us as if he saw some caterpillars on a bush.”
“He didn’t see us,” said Lychnis. “He only knew there was something or someone in the thicket. But you are afraid because if a man like that looked at you closely in the eyes he’d paralyse all your desire for resistance.”
Ruby was indignant. Ambrose describes with enjoyment the encounter between a resentful, sunset-headed Titania and a slim, bantering spirit in a purple thundercloud.
“He wouldn’t,” said Ruby.
“Well, search carefully in your mind and try and tell me exactly why his face frightens you. Reject your first thoughts and tell me precisely.”
Ruby sought, as desired. “Well,” she said, “his hands are too plump and womanish.”
“So, I believe, were Napoleon’s. But his hands are not his face. It may be your real reason, but I want to hear more of his face.”
“He had an absurd round hat, with fur on it, like Henry the Eighth.”
“A little lower and we shall come to his face.”
“He had a ridiculous coat on.”
“Too low. Mount him.”
“And I couldn’t see his legs.”
“They are important, certainly. But for God’s sake tell me about his face!”
“Oh well, then! I don’t like a man to have a yellow skin, and moth-eyebrows, and such a tiny mouth, and a jaw round instead of square, and eyes that look and look without moving.”
“I see. Delicate hands and a tiny mouth. Not European, it’s true. Not the sort of man who takes you in his grasp and sucks passionate kisses off your mouth, as if he were licking an oyster out of its gape.”
“Oh, Licky, you’re dreadful! You won’t understand. I can’t explain. I only mean there’s something about him that gives me the shivers.”
“Precisely—and deliciously. With a terrific, god-like power that comes of the very calm and delicateness of his face.”
“I shall dream of him in the night.”
“A calm, shining and awful figure, with a golden skin and slanting eyes, standing over you in a transfiguration; a visitor from some untroubled Nirvana; a being without thoughts, looking with wonder at your thought-troubled face. Not that thought troubles you much, my Juno.”
“Oh yes, it does,” protested Ruby. “I wonder and wonder—sometimes for hours. But not like you, Licky. You’re strange and say funny things.”
Lychnis suddenly changed her mood. “That’s for Ambrose to put down in his book. Dear Ambrose——” She took his arm and studied his face. He felt her eyes on him like the eyes of a violet. “Ambrose is a little Chinese,” she said. “He’s calm.” Then suddenly: “You can’t tell what thoughts are going on behind his serene, pink forehead. Does he ever give you the shivers, Ruby?”
“Oh, never!” cried Ruby.
Then they took him for a walk in the groves of the bamboo, one on each arm, and Lychnis whispered to him: “What terrific nonsense I’ve been talking!” They mounted Terence’s tower, and purple night stole over the Lotus Lake, and a myriad fireflies flickered over the forest.