"How--how sweet they are!" she murmured. Then, still smiling, but with the blush faded almost to paleness, she dropped the rose-leaves into the delicate, long-fingered hand.
"I hope it will be the sweetest essence you ever made," she said with a laugh, and Hushmut seemed to understand, for he smiled back and _salaamed_ as he, in his turn, tucked the charm into his bosom for use when the still should be ready for closing, and as he did so, he said in his high, suave voice--
"May He who knows the secret of the rose protect the bride." He said it without the least suspicion of reality; simply as a dignified piece of courtesy.
A minute afterwards the wheels of that last dogcart, as it drove out of the garden, disturbed the birds which had already begun to choose their resting-places for the night; since they too looked for the usual rest and peace in that fatal Maytime.
And for a space the peace, the rest settled on the garden. Only Hushmut's voice, as he busied himself in packing the pink petals into his still, told of any life in it beyond the birds, the flowers, the bees.
One of these, belated, drifted into the vault through the open door, and hummed a background to the high, trilling voice.
"Pale, pale are the rose-lips, sweet! Red is the heart of the rose, But red are the lips mine meet, And your heart white as the snows."
Then a faint, almost noiseless patter of bare running feet paused at the door, and some one looked in to say breathlessly--
"It hath begun, they say. But who knows? I am off to the city to see."
Hushmut looked up startled from his rose-leaves; startled, nothing more.
"God knows!" came the breathless voice. "Mayhap it is a lie. Some thought it would not come at all. I will return and tell thee the news."
The faint, almost noiseless patter of bare feet died away, and there was peace and rest in the garden for another space. Only Hushmut shuffled to the door, looked out curiously, then shuffled back to his work, for that must be finished before dark, else the roses would spoil, squandering their sweetness. There was another pile of brownish, yellow residuum ready dried for the furnace, and as he filled a basket with it, his hands among the scentless stuff, a sudden remembrance of his own impotence, his own deprivation, came to him. Perhaps he had seen a hint of the simile in the English girl's face.