Other sounds there were none but the soft rustling
of the swallows in the eaves overhead, the sucking of the tide
upon the beach below, and the whisper of night among the elms.
The air was heavy with the fragrance of climbing roses and all the
scents of the garden. In such an hour Nature is half sad and wholly
tender.
Mr. Fogo lit a pipe, and, watching its fumes as they curled out upon
the laden night, fell into a kingly melancholy. He dwelt on his
past, but without resentment; on Tamsin, but with less trouble of
heart. After all, what did it matter? Mr. Fogo, leaning forward on
the window-seat, came to a conclusion to which others have been led
before him--that life is a small thing. Oddly enough, this
discovery, though it belittled his fellowmen considerably, did not
belittle the thinker at all, or rather affected him with a very
sublime humility.
"When one thinks," said he, "that the moon will probably rise ten
million times over the hill yonder on such a night as this, it
strikes one that woman-hating is petty, not to say a trifle fatuous."
He puffed awhile in silence, and then went on--
"The strange part of it is, that the argument does not seem to affect
Tamsin as much as I should have fancied."
He paused for a moment, and added:
"Or to prove as conclusively as I should expect that I am a fool.
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