ias, gums, fig trees, chestnuts, poplars, false pepper
trees, the huge olive trees called Jamelons, white laurels, indiarubber
and cocoanut trees, bananas, bamboos, yuccas, many mimosas and
quantities of tall eucalyptus trees. Thickets of scarlet geranium flamed
in the twilight. The hibiscus lifted languidly its frail and rosy cup,
and the red gold oranges gleamed amid leaves that looked as if they had
been polished by an attentive fairy.

As she went with Smain farther into the recesses of the garden the voice
of the waterfall died away. No birds were singing. Domini thought that
perhaps they dared not sing lest they might wake the sun from its golden
reveries, but afterwards, when she knew the garden better, she often
heard them twittering with a subdued, yet happy, languor, as if joining
in a nocturn upon the edge of sleep. Under the trees the sand was
yellow, of a shade so voluptuously beautiful that she longed to touch
it with her bare feet like Smain. Here and there it rose in symmetrical
little pyramids, which hinted at absent gardeners, perhaps enjoying a
siesta.

Never before had she fully understood the enchantment of green, quite
realised how happy a choice was made on that day of Creation when it was
showered prodigally over the world. But now, as she walked secretly over
the yellow sand between the rills, following the floating green robe of
Smain, she rested her eyes, and her soul, on countless mingling shades
of the delicious colour; rough, furry green of geranium leaves, silver
green of olives, black green of distant palms from which the sun held
aloof, faded green of the eucalyptus, rich, emerald green of fan-shaped,
sunlit palms, hot, sultry green of bamboos, dull, drowsy green of
mulberry trees and brooding chestnuts. It was a choir of colours in one
colour, like a choir of boys all with treble voices singing to the sun.

Gold flickered everywhere, weaving patterns of enchantment, quivering,
vital patterns of burning beauty. Down the narrow, branching paths that
led to inner mysteries the light ran in and out, peeping between the
divided leaves of plants, gliding over the slippery edges of the palm
branches, trembling airily where the papyrus bent its antique head,
dancing among the big blades of sturdy grass that sprouted in tufts here
and there, resting languidly upon the glistening magnolias that were
besieged by somnolent bees. All the greens and all the golds of Creation
were surely met togethe