Often too we loitered, or stood, head by head,
to listen, or to watch what might be after all only wings, mere
sunbeams. Shall I say, then, that it began to be thorny, and, where
the thorns were, pale with roses, when at length the knitted boughs
gradually drew asunder, and I looked down between twitching, hairy
ears upon a glade so green and tranquil, I deemed it must be the
Garden of the Hesperides?
And because there ran a very welcome brook of water through this
glade, I left Rosinante to follow whithersoever a sweet tooth might
dictate, and climbed down into the weedy coolness at the waterbrink.
I confess I laughed to see so puckered a face as mine in the clear
blue of the flowing water. But I dipped my hands and my head into the
cold shallows none the less pleasantly, and was casting about for a
deeper pool where I might bathe unscorned of the noonday, when I heard
a light laughter behind me, and, turning cautiously, perceived under
the further shadow of the glade three ladies sitting.
Not even vanity could persuade me that they were laughing at anything
more grotesque than myself, so, putting a bold face on matters so
humiliating, I sauntered as carelessly and loftily as I dared in their
direction.
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