Thus ended Judith’s pleading with her brother ineffectually, though not for lack of eloquence or ardor. Possibly the man knew himself a fool in the deep recesses of his heart. When present in the flesh, his betrothed overpowered him with her perilous splendor. She poured her sensuous magic upon his soul, and, like Tannhäuser, he knelt before her impotent and helpless. The hashish of her beauty had lulled his deeper self to sleep.
Matters mundane were moving on apace. John Strong had draughted a company of craftsmen into the antique rooms and galleries of The Friary. Tapestries were being spread, walls garnished, friezes gilded, rich fabrics wafted into its dusky rooms. The merchant’s coffers ran gold. Truly the house was a haunt for lovers, consecrated by all the charters of romance.
September waited to hear the bells of Saltire pealing for the pair. Italy was to receive them, passionate pilgrims, treading the earth to the tune of love. Ophelia, gracious maid, had wandered from Arcady to the marts of the City of Lud to spend a novitiate amid fabrics from the loom. Her large eyes sparkled amid the splendors of Bond Street, and glib-tongued ’prentices bowed before her feet. She was very radiant, very fair, very pleasurable. Many a delectable dandy coveted unconsciously the lot of Gabriel Strong.
THE day before his journey to join the Gussets in London, Gabriel awoke in one of his errant and aspiring moods. Finality had oppressed him of late. The world seemed to have narrowed to the tangible prosaicisms of excess. The cry of his old romanticism awoke within him that morning an Arthurian spirit, the wistful questing after a mysterious unknown. Beauty gleamed anew in the wild twilight of romance. The present cringed in the dust.
Noon found him heading for the sea over the wooded hills that rolled north to Rilchester. A brisk breeze tempered the summer heat and reclaimed the hour from languor. Gabriel had certain Roman ruins as his goal—a mouldering wall, some scattered capitols, broken strands of stone, the flower-grown site of an old forum. Ruins accorded with the spirit of romance, though sentiment is not always disinterested in the consideration of things inanimate. Could Troy spare the glamour of a Helen? On the hills above Rilchester dark trees held within their shadows a house that was magical for elemental reasons. Perhaps Gabriel could have gainsaid his soul the relics of an ancient empire. Instincts more ancient perpetuated in him their power.