The floor was there all right,
underneath, but what he walked on was the carpet that covered it
and that carpet was drenched in magic, as the turf was drenched in
dew.
The feeling was very wonderful; perhaps you will feel it some day.
There are still some places in the world where it can be felt, but
they grow fewer every year.
The enchantment of the garden held him.
"I'll not go in yet," he told himself; "it's too early. And perhaps I
shall never be here at night again. I suppose it is the night that
makes everything look so different."
Something white moved under a weeping willow; white hands
parted the long, rustling leaves. A white figure came out, a
creature with horns and goat's legs and the head and arms of a boy.
And Gerald was not afraid. That was the most wonderful thing of
all, though he would never have owned it. The white thing
stretched its limbs, rolled on the grass, righted itself and frisked
away across the lawn. Still something white gleamed under the
willow; three steps nearer and Gerald saw that it was the pedestal
of a statue empty.
"They come alive," he said; and another white shape came out of
the Temple of Flora and disappeared in the laurels. "The statues
come alive."
There was a crunching of the little stones in the gravel of the drive.
Something enormously long and darkly grey came crawling
towards him, slowly, heavily.
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