"Yes," he acknowledged, while his heart sank within him, "the
rain has stopped."
And now the storm departed almost as rapidly as it had arrived.
In the north the sky was already clear, blue and hard-looking
--a wall of lapis-lazuli. The dark cloud-canopy was drifting to
the south. Suddenly the sun came out, flashing first from the
snows of Monte Sfiorito, then, in an instant, flooding the
entire prospect with a marvellous yellow light, ethereal amber;
whilst long streamers of tinted vapour--columns of pearl-dust,
one might have fancied--rose to meet it; and all wet surfaces,
leaves, lawns, tree-trunks, housetops, the bare crags of the
Gnisi, gleamed in a wash of gold.
Puffs of fresh air blew into the kitchen, filling it with the
keen sweet odour of wet earth. The priest and the Duchessa and
Emilia joined Peter at the open door.
"Oh, your poor, poor garden!" the Duchessa cried.
His garden had suffered a good deal, to be sure. The flowers
lay supine, their faces beaten into the mud; the greensward was
littered with fallen leaves and twigs--and even in one or two
places whole branches had been broken from the trees; on the
ground about each rose-bush a snow of pink rose-petals lay
scattered; in the paths there were hundreds of little pools,
shining in the sun like pools of fire.
"There's nothing a gardener can't set right," said Peter,
feeling no doubt that here was a trifling tax upon the delights
the storm had procured him.
"And oh, our poor, poor hats!" said the Duchessa, eyeing
ruefully those damaged pieces of finery. "I fear no gardener
can ever set them right."
"It sounds inhospitable," said Peter, "but I suppose I had
better go and build your bridge."
So he threw a ladder athwart the river, and laid the planks in
place, as he had seen Gigi do the day before.
"How ingenious--and, like all great things, how simple,"
laughed the Duchessa.
Peter waved his hand, as who should modestly deprecate
applause. But, I 'm ashamed to own, he didn't disclaim the
credit of the invention.
"It will require some nerve," she reflected, looking at the
narrow planks, the foaming green water. "However--"
And gathering in her skirts, she set bravely forward, and made
the transit without mishap. The priest and Emilia, gathering
in their skirts, made it after her.
She paused on the other side, and looked back, smiling.
"Since you have discovered so efficacious a means of cutting
short the distance between our places of abode," she said, "I
hope you will not fail to profit by it whenever you may have
occasion--on Thursday, for example."