Even her ambiguities and espieglerie were but media of
the same manifestation; acted charades, embodying the words of her
prototype, the tender and susceptible daughter-in-law of Naomi:
'Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast
comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine
handmaid.'
She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse.
Knight was sitting under a great passion-flower observing the
scene. Sometimes he looked out at the rain from the sky, and then
at Elfride's inner rain of larger drops, which fell from trees and
shrubs, after having previously hung from the twigs like small
silver fruit.
'I must give you something to make you think of me during this
autumn at your chambers,' she was saying. 'What shall it be?
Portraits do more harm than good, by selecting the worst
expression of which your face is capable. Hair is unlucky. And
you don't like jewellery.'
'Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we
have enacted in this conservatory. I see what I should prize very
much. That dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so
carefully tending.'
Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle.
'I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,' said Knight. 'And I
will put it in my window, and so, it being always before my eyes,
I shall think of you continually.'
It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a
peculiar beginning and history.
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