CHAPTER XXXIII

THE OVERTURE TO "UNDINE"

It was the morning of the day of "Undine's" production. I had ridden over to the Pavilion from Paris to breakfast with Franzius and Eloise.

The rehearsal had almost wrecked Franzius, but he was all right now; the ship was built; only the launching remained. As to Eloise, in six months she had altered subtly yet marvellously. I had last seen her a girl in her bridal dress; she was now a woman, for in six months she had aged years, without gaining a wrinkle or losing a trace of the beauty of youth. Love had ripened her; her every movement was marked by that self-contained grace which comes from maturity of mind; the wild beauty of spring had vanished, giving place to the full beauty of summer--the grace of Demeter gazing upon the fields of immortal wheat.

It was the wish of both my guardian and myself that Franzius and Eloise should inhabit the Pavilion as much as they chose. We had offered the place to them, indeed, as a wedding gift, but the permission to live there was all they would take.

This morning we breakfasted with the windows open. The swallows had not come back, yet the wind that puffed the chintz curtains was warm as the wind of May. Its sound amidst the trees was like the sound of April walking in the woods.

We came out and walked to the cottage of old Fauchard, whose wife was