And Florian shook his sleek black head. "A very foolish and pessimistical
old song, a superfluous song, and a song that is particularly out of
place in the loveliest spot in the loveliest of all possible worlds."

Yet Florian took no inventory of the gardens. There was but a happy sense
of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing
leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense
of pert bird noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before
him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly it was
not a morning wherein pessimism might hope to flourish.

Instead, it was of Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall, impulsive,
and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent, and of her
tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited felicity in
having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing--what if he had
too hastily married somebody else? For he had earlier fancied other women
for one reason or another: but this, he knew, was the great love of his
life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.


3. _What Comes of Marrying Happily_

The tale tells how Florian de Puysange found Adelaide in the company of
two ladies who were unknown to him. One of these was very old, the other
an imposing matron in middle life. The three were pleasantly shaded by
young oak-trees; beyond was a tall hedge of clipped yew. The older women
were at chess, while Adelaide bent her meek golden head to some of that
fine needlework in which the girl delighted. And beside them rippled a
small sunlit stream, which babbled and gurgled with silver flashes.