When they went out into the patio¹ again, David had lost a large part of his buoyancy of spirits, as though in some subtle manner Connor had overcast² the triumph of the room; he left them with word that the evening meal would soon be ready and hurried off calling orders to Zacharias.  
"Why did you do it?" she asked Connor as soon as they were alone.
 
"Because it made me mad to see a stargazer like that turning your head."
 
"But didn't you think the room was beautiful?"
 
"Sure. Like a riot in a florist's shop. But don't let this David take you off guard with his rooms full of flowers and full of silence."
 
"Silence?"
 
"Haven't I told you about his Room of Silence? That's one of his queer dodges³. That room; you see? When anything bothers him he goes over and sits down in there, because—do you know what he thinks sits with him?"
 
"Well?"
 
"God!"
 
She was between a smile and a gasp⁴.
 
"Yep, that's David," grinned Connor. "Just plain nut."
 
"What's inside?"
 
"I don't know. Maybe flowers."
 
"Let's find out."
 
He caught her arm quickly.
 
"Not in a thousand years!" He changed color at the thought and glanced guiltily around. "That would be the smash of everything. Why, he turned over the whole Garden of Eden to me. I can go anywhere, but not a step inside that room. It's his Holy Ground, you see! Maybe it's where he keeps his jack⁵. And I've a hunch⁶ that he has a slough⁷ of it tucked away somewhere."
 
She raised her hand as an idea came to her half way through this speech.
 
"Listen! I have an idea that the clew to all of David's mystery is in that room!"
 
"drop that idea, Ruth," he ordered gruffly. "You've seen David on one rampage, but it's nothing to what would happen if you so much as peeked⁸ into that place. When the servants pass that door they take off their hats—watch 'em the next time you have a chance. You won't make a slip about that room?"
 
"No." But she added: "I'd give my soul—for one look!"
 
Dinner that night under the stars with the whispering of the fountain beside them was a ceremony which Connor never forgot. The moon rose late and in the meantime the sky was heavy and dark with sheeted patchwork⁹ of clouds, with the stars showing here and there. The wind blew in gusts¹⁰. A wave began with a whisper on the hill, came with a light rushing across the patio, and then diminished quickly among the trees down the terraces. Rough, iron-framed lanterns gave the light and showed the arcade¹¹ stepping away on either side and growing dim toward the entrance. That uncertain illumination made the crude pillars seem to have only the irregularity of vast antiquity¹², stable masses of stone. Where the circle of lantern-light overlapped¹³ rose the fountain, a pale spray forever dissolving in the upper shadow. Connor himself was more or less used to these things, but he became newly aware of them as the girl sent quick, eager glances here and there.
 
She had placed a single one of the great yellow blossoms in her hair and it changed her shrewdly. It brought out the delicate coloring of her skin, and to the darkness of her eyes it lent a tint¹⁴ of violet. Plainly she enjoyed the scene with its newness. David, of course, was the spice to everything, and his capitulation was complete; he kept the girl always on an uneasy balance between happiness and laughter. And Connor trembled for fear the mirth would show through. But each change of her expression appeared to delight David more than the last.
 
Under his deft¹⁵ knife the choicest white meat came away from the breast of a chicken and he heaped it at once on the plate of Ruth. Then he dropped his chin upon his great brown fist and watched with silent delight while she ate. It embarrassed her; but her flush had a tinge¹⁶ of pleasure in it, as Connor very well knew.
 
"Look!" said David, speaking softly as though Ruth would not hear him. "How pleasant it is, to be three together. When we were two, one talked and the other grew weary—was it not so? But now we are complete. One speaks, one listens, and the other judges. I have been alone. The Garden of Eden has been to me a prison, at many times. And now there is nothing wanting. And why? There were many men before. We were not lacking in numbers. Yet there was an emptiness, and now comes one small creature, as delicate as a colt of three months, this being of smiles and curious glances, this small voice, this woman—and at once the gap is filled. Is it not strange?"
 
He cast himself back in his chair, as though he wished to throw her into perspective with her surroundings, and all the time he was staring as though she were an image, a picture, and not a thing of flesh and blood. Connor himself was on the verge¹⁷ of a smile, but when he saw the face of Ruth Manning his mirth disappeared in a chill of terror. She was struggling and struggling in vain against a rising tide of laughter, laughter in the face of David Eden and his sensitive pride.
 
It came, it broke through all bonds, and now it was bubbling from her lips. As one who awaits the falling of a blow, Connor glanced furtively¹⁸ at the host, and again he was startled.
 
There was not a shade of evil temper in the face of David. He leaned forward, indeed, with a surge of the great shoulders, but it was as one who listens to an entr............