o words came to him
with which to ask their question and he did not know what question they
would ask. He was all vibrating with the human longing: I know not what
it is, but perhaps philosophers know. He sat there waiting while a late
bird sailed homeward, sat while Morano wondered. And nothing spake from
anywhere.

And now a dog began to notice the moon: now a child cried suddenly that
had been dragged back from the street, where it had wandered at
bedtime: an old dog rose from where it had lain in the sun and feebly
yet confidently scratched at a door: a cat peered round a corner: a man
spoke: Rodriguez knew there would be no answer now.

Rodriguez hit his horse, the tired animal went forward, and he and
Morano rode slowly up the street.

Dona Serafina of the Valley of Dawnlight had left the heat of the room
that looked on the fields, and into which the sun had all day been
streaming, and had gone at sunset to sit in the balcony that looked
along the street. Often she would do this at sunset; but she rather
dreamed as she sat there than watched the street, for all that it had
to show she knew without glancing. Evening after evening as soon as
winter was over the neighbour would come from next door and stretch
himself and yawn and sit on a chair by his doorway, and the neighbour
from opposite would saunter across the way to him, and they would talk
with eagerness of the sale of cattle, and sometimes, but more coldly,
of the affairs of kings. She knew, but cared not to know, just when the
two old men would begin their talk. She knew who owned every dog that
stretched itself in the dust until chilly winds blew in the dusk and
they rose up dissatisfied. She knew the affairs of that street like an
old, old lesson taught drearily, and her thoughts went far away to
vales of an imagination where they met with many another maiden fancy,
and they all danced there together through the long twilight in Spring.
And then her mother would come and warn her that the evening grew cold,
and Serafina would turn from the mystery of evening into the house and
the candle-light. This was so evening after evening all through spring
and summer for two long years of her youth. And then, this evening,
just as the two old neighbours began to discuss whether or not the
subjugation of the entire world by Spain would be for its benefit, just
as one of the dogs in the road was rising slowly to shake itself,
neighbours and dogs all raised their h