He had known exactly the sort of background to suit her, a
background as expensive as picturesque; a millionaire husband had paid for
it. There were many verandas and pergolas, but this immense out-of-doors
room had wide archways instead of pillars, curtained with white and purple
passion flowers; and the creamy stucco of the house-wall, and the ruddy
Spanish tiles, which already looked mellow with age, were half hidden with
climbing roses and grapevines.
Three shallow steps of pansy-coloured bricks went all the length of the
gallery, descending to a terrace floored with the same brick, which held
dim tints of purple, old rose, gray and yellow, almost like a faded
Persian rug.
When Carmen had looked past the fountain across the lawn, down the path
cut between pink oleanders, where the man she expected ought to appear,
she trailed her white dress over terrace and grass to peer under the green
roof of the bamboo forest. It was like a temple with tall pillars of
priceless jade that supported a roof of the same gray-green, starred in a
vague pattern with the jewels of sunset. Carmen did not see the beauty of
the magic temple, though she was conscious of her own. She hated to think
that Nick Hilliard should keep her waiting, and there was cruelty in the
clutch she made at a cluster of orange blossoms as she passed a long row
of trees in terra-cotta pots on the terrace.
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