Van was lying in his netted nest under the liriodendrons, read-
	ing Antiterrenus on Rattner. His knee had troubled him all
	night; now, after lunch, it seemed a bit better. Ada had gone on
	horseback to Ladore, where he hoped she would forget to buy
283.05	the messy turpentine oil Marina had told her to bring him.
	His valet advanced toward him across the lawn, followed by
	a messenger, a slender youth clad in black leather from neck to
	ankle, chestnut curls escaping from under a vizored cap. The
	strange child glanced around with an amateur thespian's exag-
283.10	geration of attitude, and handed a letter, marked "confidential,"
	to Van.
	Dear Veen,
	In a couple of days I must leave for a spell of military
	service abroad. If you desire to see me before I go I shall
283.15	be glad to entertain you (and any other gentleman you
	might wish to bring along) at dawn tomorrow where
	the Maidenhair road crosses Tourbiere Lane. If not, I
	beg you to confirm in a brief note that you bear me no

[ 283 ]

	grudge, just as no grudge is cherished in regard to you,
	sir, by your obedient servant
	Percy de Prey
	No, Van did not desire to see the Count. He said so to the
284.05	pretty messenger, who stood with one hand on the hip and one
	knee turned out like an extra, waiting for the signal to join the
	gambaders in the country dance after Calabro's aria.
	“Un moment,” added Van. “I would be interested to know—
	this could be decided in a jiffy behind that tree—what you are,
284.10	stable boy or kennel girl?”
	The messenger did not reply and was led away by the
	chuckling Bout. A little squeal suggestive of an improper pinch
	came from behind the laurels screening their exit.
	It was hard to decide whether that clumsy and pretentious
284.15	missive had been dictated by the fear that one's sailing off to
	fight for one's country might be construed as running away
	from more private engagements, or whether its conciliatory
	gist had been demanded from Percy by somebody—perhaps a
	woman (for instance his mother, born Praskovia Lanskoy);
284.20	anyway, Van's honor remained unaffected. He limped to the
	nearest garbage can and, having burnt the letter with its crested
	blue envelope, dismissed the incident from his mind, merely
	noting that now, at least, Ada would cease to be pestered by
	the fellow's attentions.
284.25	She returned late in the afternoon—without the embrocation,
	thank goodness. He was still lolling in his low-slung hammock,
	looking rather forlorn and sulky, but having glanced around
	(with more natural grace than the brown-locked messenger had
	achieved), she raised her veil, kneeled down by him and soothed
284.30	him.
	When lightning struck two days later (an old image that is
	meant to intimate a flash-back to an old barn), Van became
	aware that it brought together, in livid confrontation, two

[ 284 ]

	secret witnesses; they had been hanging back in his mind since
	the first day of his fateful return to Ardis: One had been mur-
	muring with averted gaze that Percy de Prey was, and would
	always be, only a dance partner, a frivolous follower; the other
285.05	had kept insinuating, with spectral insistence, that some nameless
	trouble was threatening the very sanity of Van's pale, faithless
	mistress.
	On the morning of the day preceding the most miserable one
	in his life, he found he could bend his leg without wincing, but
285.10	he made the mistake of joining Ada and Lucette in an im-
	promptu lunch on a long-neglected croquet lawn and walked
	home with difficulty. A swim in the pool and a soak in the
	sun helped, however, and the pain had practically gone when
	in the mellow heat of the long afternoon Ada returned from
285.15	one of her long "brambles" as she called her botanical rambles,
	succinctly and somewhat sadly, for the florula had ceased to
	yield much beyond the familiar favorites. Marina, in a luxurious
	peignoir, with a large oval mirror hinged before her, sat at a
	white toilet table that had been carried out onto the lawn where
285.20	she was having her hair dressed by senile but still wonderwork-
	ing Monsieur Violette of Lyon and Ladore, an unusual outdoor
	activity which she explained and excused by the fact of her
	grandmother's having also liked qu'on la coiffe au grand air so
	as to forestall the zephyrs (as a duelist steadies his hand by
285.25	walking about with a poker).
	"That's our best performer," she said, indicating Van to
	Violette who mistook him for Pedro and bowed with un air
	entendu.
	Van had been looking forward to a little walk of convales-
285.30	cence with Ada before dressing for dinner, but she said, as she
	drooped on a garden chair, that she was exhausted and filthy and
	had to wash her face and feet, and prepare for the ordeal of
	helping her mother entertain the movie people who were ex-
	pected later in the evening.

[ 285 ]

	"I've seen him in Sexico," murmured Monsieur Violette to
	Marina, whose ears he had shut with both hands as he moved
	the reflection of her head in the glass this way and that.
	"No, it's getting late," muttered Ada, "and, moreover, I prom-
286.05	ised Lucette—"
	He insisted in a fierce whisper—fully knowing, however,
	how useless it was to attempt to make her change her mind,
	particularly in amorous matters; but unaccountably and mar-
	velously her dazed look melted into one of gentle glee, as if in
286.10	sudden perception of new-found release. Thus a child may
	stare into space, with a dawning smile, upon realizing that the
	bad dream is over, or that a door has been left unlocked, and
	that one can paddle with impunity in thawed sky. Ada rid her
	shoulder of the collecting satchel and, under Violette's benevo-
286.15	lent gaze following them over Marina's mirrored head, they
	strolled away and sought the comparative seclusion of the park
	alley where she had once demonstrated to him her sun-and-shade
	games. He held her, and kissed her, and kissed her again as if
	she had returned from a long and perilous journey. The sweet-
286.20	ness of her smile was something quite unexpected and special.
	It was not the sly demon smile of remembered or promised
	ardor, but the exquisite human glow of happiness and helpless-
	ness. All their passionate pump-joy exertions, from Burning
	Barn to Burnberry Brook, were nothing in comparison to this
286.25	zaychik, this "sun blick" of the smiling spirit. Her black jumper
	and black Skirt with apron pockets lost its "in-mourning-for-a-
	lost flower" meaning that Marina had fancifully attached to her
	dress ("nemedlenno pereodet'sya, change immediately!" she had
	yelped into the green-shimmering looking-glass); instead, it had
286.30	acquired the charm of a Lyaskan, old-fashioned schoolgirl uni-
	form. They stood brow to brow, brown to white, black to
	black, he supporting her elbows, she playing her limp light
	fingers over his collarbone, and how he "ladored," he said, the

[ 286 ]

	dark aroma of her hair blending with crushed lily stalks, Turk-
	ish cigarettes and the lassitude that comes from "lass." "No, no,
	don't," she said, I must wash, quick-quick, Ada must wash; but
	for yet another immortal moment they stood embraced in the
287.05	hushed avenue, enjoying, as they had never enjoyed before, the
	"happy-forever" feeling at the end of never-ending fairy tales.
	That's a beautiful passage, Van. I shall cry all night (late
	interpolation).
	As a last sunbeam struck Ada, her mouth and chin shone
287.10	drenched with his poor futile kisses. She shook her head saying
	they must really part, and she kissed his hands as she did only
	in moments of supreme tenderness, and then quickly turned
	away, and they really parted.
	One common orchid, a Lady's Slipper, was all that wilted in
287.15	the satchel which she had left on a garden table and now
	dragged upstairs. Marina and the mirror had gone. He peeled
	off his training togs and took one last dip in the pool over which
	the butler stood, looking meditatively into the false-blue water
	with his hands behind his back.
287.20	"I wonder," he said, "if I haven't just seen a tadpole."
	The novelistic theme of written communications has now
	really got into its stride. When Van went up to his room he
	noticed, with a shock of grim premonition, a slip of paper
	sticking out of the heart pocket of his dinner jacket. Penciled
287.25	in a large hand, with the contour of every letter deliberately
	whiffled and rippled, was the anonymous injunction: "One must
	not berne you." Only a French-speaking person would use that
	word for "dupe." Among the servants, fifteen at least were of
	French extraction—descendants of immigrants who had settled
287.30	in America after England had annexed their beautiful and un-
	fortunate country in 1815. To interview them all—torture the
	males, rape the females—would be, of course, absurd and de-
	grading. With a puerile wrench he broke his best black butter-

[ 287 ]

	fly on the wheel of his exasperation. The pain from the fang
	bite was now reaching his heart. He found another tie, finished
	dressing and went to look for Ada.
	He found both girls and their governess in one of the "nursery
288.05	parlors," a delightful sitting room with a balcony on which
	Mlle Larivière was sitting at a charmingly ornamented Pem-
	broke table and reading with mixed feelings and furious annota-
	tions the third shooting script of Les Enfants Maudits. At a
	larger round table in the middle of the inner room, Lucette
288.10	under Ada's direction was trying to learn to draw flowers;
	several botanical atlases, large and small, were lying about.
	Everything appeared as it always used to be, the little nymphs
	and goats on the painted ceiling, the mellow light of the day
	ripening into evening, the remote dreamy rhythm of Blanche's
288.15	"linen-folding" voice humming "Malbrough" (...ne sait quand
	reviendra, ne sait quand reviendra) and the two lovely heads,
	bronze-black and copper-red, inclined over the table. Van real-
	ized that he must simmer down before consulting Ada—or in-
	deed before telling her he wished to consult her. She looked gay
288.20	and elegant; she was wearing his diamonds for the first time;
	she had put on a new evening dress with jet gleams, and—also
	for the first time— transparent silk stockings.
	He sat down on a little sofa, took at random one of the open
	volumes and stared in disgust at a group of brilliantly pictured
288.25	gross orchids whose popularity with bees depended, said the
	text, "on various attractive odors ranging from the smell of
	dead workers to that of a tomcat." Dead soldiers might smell
	even better.
	In the meantime obstinate Lucette kept insisting that the
288.30	easiest way to draw a flower was to place a sheet of transparent
	paper over the picture (in the present case a red-bearded po-
	gonia, with indecent details of structure, a plant peculiar to the
	Ladoga bogs) and trace the outline of the thing in colored inks.

[ 288 ]

	Patient Ada wanted her to copy not mechanically but "from
	eye to hand and from hand to eye," and to use for model a live
	specimen of another orchid that had a brown wrinkled pouch
	and purple sepals; but after a while she gave in cheerfully and
289.05	set aside the crystal vaselet holding the Lady's Slipper she had
	picked. Casually, lightly, she went on to explain how the or-
	gans of orchids work—but all Lucette wanted to know, after her
	whimsical fashion, was: could a boy bee impregnate a girl flower
	through something, through his gaiters or woolies or whatever
289.10	he wore?
	"You know," said Ada in a comic nasal voice, turning to
	Van, "you know, that child has the dirtiest mind imaginable
	and now she is going to be mad at me for saying this and sob
	on the Larivière bosom, and complain she has been pollinated
289.15	by sitting on your knee."
	"But I can't speak to Belle about dirty things," said Lucette
	quite gently and reasonably.
	"What's the matter with you, Van?" inquired sharp-eyed
	Ada.
289.20	"Why do you ask?" inquired Van in his turn.
	"Your ears wiggle and you clear your throat."
	"Are you through with those horrible flowers?"
	"Yes. I'm going to wash my hands. We'll meet down-
	stairs. Your tie is all crooked."
289.25	"All right, all right," said Van.
	"Mon page, mon beau page,
	—Mironton-mironton-mirontaine—
	Mon page, mon beau page..."
	Downstairs, Jones was already taking down the dinner gong
289.30	from its hook in the hall.
	"Well, what's the matter?" she asked when they met a minute
	later on the drawing-room terrace.

[ 289 ]

	"I found this in my jacket," said Van.
	Rubbing her big front teeth with a nervous forefinger, Ada
	read and reread the note.
	"How do you know it's meant for you?" she asked, giving
290.05	him back the bit of copybook paper.
	"Well, I'm telling you," he yelled.
	"Tishe (quiet!)!" said Ada.
	"I'm telling you I found it here," (pointing at his heart).
	"Destroy and forget it," said Ada.
290.10	"Your obedient servant," replied Van.

[ 290 ]