'Yes,' he said at last, 'it is time to get up,' and then he rose from the ground.

They scoured the meadow-lands until evening began to fall. They went on and on, inspecting their garden. Albine walked in front, sniffing like a young dog, and saying nothing, but she was ever in search of the happy glade, although where they found themselves there were none of the big trees of which her thoughts were full. Serge meanwhile indulged in all kinds of clumsy gallantry. He rushed forward so hastily to thrust the tall herbage aside, that he nearly tripped her up; and he almost tore her arm from her body as he tried to a.s.sist her over the brooks. Their joy was great when they came to the three other streams. The first flowed over a bed of pebbles, between two rows of willows, so closely planted that they had to grope between the branches with the risk of falling into some deep part of the water. It only rose to Serge's knees, however, and having caught Albine in his arms he carried her to the opposite bank, to save her from a wetting. The next stream flowed black with shade beneath a lofty canopy of foliage, pa.s.sing languidly onward with the gentle rustling and rippling of the satin train of some lady, dreamily sauntering through the woodland depths. It was a deep, cold, and rather dangerous-looking stream, but a fallen tree that stretched from bank to bank served them as a bridge. They crossed over, bestriding the tree with dangling feet, at first amusing themselves by stirring the water which looked like a mirror of burnished steel, but then suddenly hastening, frightened by the strange eyes which opened in the depths of the sleepy current at the slightest splash. But it was the last stream which delayed them the most. It was sportive like themselves, it flowed more slowly at certain bends, whence it started off again with merry ripples, past piles of big stones, into the shelter of some clump of trees, and grew calmer once more. It exhibited every humour as it sped along over soft sand or rocky boulders, over sparkling pebbles or greasy clay, where leaping frogs made yellow puddles. Albine and Serge dabbled about in delight, and even walked homewards through the stream in preference to remaining on the bank. At every little island that divided the current they landed. They conquered the savage spot or rested beneath the lofty canes and reeds, which seemed to grow there expressly as shelter for shipwrecked adventurers. Thus they made a delightful progress, amused by the changing scenery of the banks, enlivened by the merry humour of the living current.

But when they were about to leave the river, Serge realised that Albine was still seeking something along the banks, on the island, even among the plants that slept on the surface of the water. He was obliged to go and pull her from the midst of a patch of water-lilies whose broad leaves set _collerettes_ around her limbs. He said nothing, but shook his finger at her. And at last they went home, walking along, arm in arm, like young people after a day's outing. They looked at each other, and thought one another handsomer and stronger than before, and of a certainty their laughter had a different ring from that with which it had sounded in the morning.

XI

'Are we never going out again?' asked Serge some days later.

And when he saw Albine shrug her shoulders with a weary air, he added, in a teasing kind of way, 'You have got tired of looking for your tree, then?'

They joked about the tree all day and made fun of it. It didn't exist.

It was only a nursery-story. Yet they both spoke of it with a slight feeling of awe. And on the morrow they settled that they would go to the far end of the park and pay a visit to the great forest-trees which Serge had not yet seen. Albine refused to take anything along with them.

They breakfasted before starting and did not set off till late. The heat of the sun, which was then great, brought them a feeling of languor, and they sauntered along gently, side by side, seeking every patch of sheltering shade. They lingered neither in the garden nor the orchard, through which they had to pa.s.s. When they gained the shady coolness beneath the big trees, they dropped into a still slower pace; and, without a word, but with a deep sigh, as though it were welcome relief to escape from the glare of day, they pushed on into the forest's depths. And when they had nothing but cool green leaves about them, when no glimpse of the sunlit expanse was afforded by any gap in the foliage, they looked at each other and smiled, with a feeling of vague uneasiness.

'How nice it is here!' murmured Serge.

Albine simply nodded her head. A choking sensation in her throat prevented her from speaking. Their arms were not pa.s.sed as usual round each other's waist, but swung loosely by their sides. They walked along without touching each other, and with their heads inclined towards the ground.

But Serge suddenly stopped short on seeing tears trickle down Albine's cheeks and mingle with the smile that played around her lips.

'What is the matter with you?' he exclaimed; 'are you in pain? Have you hurt yourself?'

'No, don't you see I'm smiling? I don't know how it is, but the scent of all these trees forces tears into my eyes.' She glanced at him, and then resumed: 'Why, you're crying too! You see you can't help it.'

'Yes,' he murmured, 'all this deep shade affects one. It seems so peaceful, so mournful here that one feels a little sad. But you must tell me, you know, if anything makes you really unhappy. I have not done anything to annoy you, have I? you are not vexed with me?'

She a.s.sured him that she was not. She was quite happy, she said.

'Then why are you not enjoying yourself more? Shall we have a race?'

'Oh! no, we can't race,' she said, disdainfully, with a pout. And when he went on to suggest other amus.e.m.e.nts, such as bird-nesting or gathering strawberries or violets, she replied a little impatiently: 'We are too big for that sort of thing. It is childish to be always playing.

Doesn't it please you better to walk on quietly by my side?'

She stepped along so prettily, that it was, indeed, a pleasure to hear the pit-pat of her little boots on the hard soil of the path. Never before had he paid attention to the rhythmic motion of her figure, the sweep of her skirts that followed her with serpentine motion. It was happiness never to be exhausted, to see her thus walking sedately by his side, for he was ever discovering some new charm in the lissom suppleness of her limbs.

'You are right,' he said, 'this is really the best. I would walk by your side to the end of the world, if you wished it.'

A little further on, however, he asked her if she were not tired, and hinted that he would not be sorry to have a rest himself.

'We might sit down for a few minutes,' he suggested in a stammering voice.

'No,' she replied, 'I don't want to.'

'But we might lie down, you know, as we did in the meadows the other day. We should be quite comfortable.'

'No, no; I don't want to.'

And she suddenly sprang aside, as if scared by the masculine arms outstretched towards her. Serge called her a big stupid, and tried to catch her. But at the light touch of his fingers she cried out with such an expression of pain that he drew back, trembling.

'I have hurt you?' he said.

She did not reply for a moment, surprised, herself, at her cry of fear, and already smiling at her own alarm.

'No; leave me, don't worry me;' and she added in a grave tone, though she tried to feign jocularity: 'you know that I have my tree to look for.'

Then Serge began to laugh, and offered to help her in her search. He conducted himself very gently in order that he might not again alarm her, for he saw that she was even yet trembling, though she had resumed her slow walk beside him. What they were contemplating was forbidden, and could bring them no luck; and he, like her, felt a delightful awe, which thrilled him at each repeated sigh of the forest trees. The perfume of the foliage, the soft green light which filtered through the leaves, the soughing silence of the undergrowth, filled them with tremulous excitement, as though the next turn of the path might lead them to some perilous happiness.

And for hours they walked on under the cool trees. They retained their reserved att.i.tude towards each other, and scarcely exchanged a word, though they never left each other's side, but went together through the darkest greenery of the forest. At first their way lay through a jungle of saplings with trunks no thicker than a child's wrist. They had to push them aside, and open a path for themselves through the tender shoots which threw a wavy lacework of foliage before their eyes. The saplings closed up again behind them, leaving no trace of their pa.s.sage, and they struggled on and on at random, ignorant of where they might be, and leaving nothing behind them to mark their progress, save a momentary waving of shaken boughs. Albine, weary of being unable to see more than three steps in front of her, was delighted when they at last found themselves free of this jungle, whose end they had long tried to discover. They had now reached a little clearing, whence several narrow paths, fringed with green hedges, struck out in various directions, twisting hither and thither, intersecting one another, bending and stretching in the most capricious fashion. Albine and Serge rose on tip-toes to peep over the hedges; but they were in no haste, and would willingly have stayed where they were, lost in the mazy windings, without ever getting anywhere, if they had not seen before them the proud lines of the lofty forest trees. They pa.s.sed at last beneath their shade, solemnly and with a touch of sacred awe, as when one enters some vaulted cathedral. The straight lichen-stained trunks of the mighty trees, of a dingy grey, like discoloured stone, towered loftily, line by line, like a far-reaching infinity of columns. Naves opened far away, with lower, narrower aisles; naves strangely bold in their proportions, whose supporting pillars were very slender, richly caned, so finely chiselled that everywhere they allowed a glimpse of the blue heavens. A religious silence reigned beneath the giant arches, the ground below lay hard as stone in its austere nakedness; not a blade of green was there, nought but a ruddy dust of dead leaves. And Serge and Albine listened to their ringing footsteps as they went on, thrilled by the majestic solitude of this temple.

Here, indeed, if anywhere, must be the much-sought tree, beneath whose shade perfect happiness had made its home. They felt that it was nigh, such was the delight which stole through them amidst the dimness of those mighty arches. The trees seemed to be creatures of kindliness, full of strength and silence and happy restfulness. They looked at them one by one, and they loved them all; and they awaited from their majestic tranquillity some revelation whereby they themselves might grow, expand into the bliss of strong and perfect life. The maples, the ashes, the hornbeams, the cornels, formed a nation of giants, a mult.i.tude full of proud gentleness, who lived in peace, knowing that the fall of any one of them would have sufficed to wreck a whole corner of the forest. The elms displayed colossal bodies and limbs full of sap, scarce veiled by light cl.u.s.ters of little leaves. The birches and the alders, delicate as sylphs, swayed their slim figures in the breeze to which they surrendered the foliage that streamed around them like the locks of G.o.ddesses already half metamorphosed into trees. The planes shot up regularly with glossy tattooed bark, whence scaly fragments fell. Down a gentle slope descended the larches, resembling a band of barbarians, draped in _sayons_ of woven greenery. But the oaks were the monarchs of all--the mighty oaks, whose st.u.r.dy trunks thrust out conquering arms that barred the sun's approach from all around them; t.i.tan-like trees, oft lightning-struck, thrown back in postures like those of unconquered wrestlers, with scattered limbs that alone gave birth to a whole forest.

Could the tree which Serge and Albine sought be one of those colossal oaks? or was it one of those lovely planes, or one of those pale, maidenly birches, or one of those creaking elms? Albine and Serge still plodded on, unable to tell, completely lost amongst the crowding trees.

For a moment they thought they had found the object of their quest in the midst of a group of walnut trees from whose thick foliage fell so cold a shadow that they shivered beneath it. Further on they felt another thrill of emotion as they came upon a little wood of chestnut trees, green with moss and thrusting out big strange-shaped branches, on which one might have built an aerial village. But further still Albine caught sight of a clearing, whither they both ran hastily. Here, in the midst of a carpet of fine turf, a locust tree had set a very toppling of greenery, a foliaged Babel, whose ruins were covered with the strangest vegetation. Stones, sucked up from the ground by the mounting sap, still remained adhering to the trunk. High branches bent down to earth again, and, taking root, surrounded the parent tree with lofty arches, a nation of new trunks which ever increased and multiplied. Upon the bark, seared with bleeding wounds, were ripening fruit-pods; the mere effort of bearing fruit strained the old monster's skin until it split. The young folks walked slowly round it, pa.s.sing under the arched branches which formed as it were the streets of a city, and stared at the gaping cracks of the naked roots. Then they went off, for they had not felt there the supernatural happiness they sought.

'Where are we?' asked Serge.

Albine did not know. She had never before come to this part of the park.

They were now in a grove of cytisus and acacias, from whose cl.u.s.tering blossoms fell a soft, almost sugary perfume. 'We are quite lost,' she laughed. 'I don't know these trees at all.'

'But the garden must come to an end somewhere,' said Serge. 'When we get to the end, you will know where you are, won't you?'

'No,' she answered, waving her hands afar.

They fell into silence; never yet had the vastness of the park filled them with such pleasure. They joyed at knowing that they were alone in so far-spreading a domain that even they themselves could not reach its limits.

'Well, we are lost,' said Serge, gaily; then humbly drawing near her he inquired: 'You are not afraid, are you?'

'Oh! no. There's no one except you and me in the garden. What could I be afraid of? The walls are very high. We can't see them, but they guard us, you know.'

Serge was now quite close to her, and he murmured, 'But a little time ago you were afraid of me.'

She looked him straight in the face, perfectly calm, without the least faltering in her glance. 'You hurt me,' she replied, 'but you are different now. Why should I be afraid of you?'

'Then you will let me hold you like this. We will go back under the trees.'

'Yes, you may put your arm around me, it makes me feel happy. And we'll walk slowly, eh? so that we may not find our way again too soon.'

He had pa.s.sed his arm round her waist, and it was thus that they sauntered back to the shade of the great forest trees, under whose arching vaults they slowly went, with love awakening within them.

Albine said that she felt a little tired, and rested her head on Serge's shoulder. The fabulous tree was now forgotten. They only sought to draw their faces nearer together that they might smile in one another's eyes.

And it was the trees, the maples, the elms, the oaks, with their soft green shade, that whisperingly suggested to them the first words of love.

'I love you!' said Serge, while his breath stirred the golden hair that cl.u.s.tered round Albine's temples. He tried to think of other words, but he could only repeat, 'I love you! I love you!'

Albine listened with a delightful smile upon her face. The music of her heart was in accord with his.