Page 137 of 788

Then he threatened him with his finger, adjusted his cowl, and

departed; the Count tarried on the spot a moment more, cursing

and yet laughing at this sudden hindrance. He glanced at die

garden, but she was no longer in the garden; only her pink ribbon

and her white gown flashed through the window. On the garden bed

one could see the path by which she had flown, for the green

leaves, spurned by her foot in her flight, raised themselves and

trembled an instant before they became quiet, like water cut by

the wings of a bird. Only on the place where she had been

standing, her abandoned willow basket, empty and overturned, was

still poised upon the leaves and tossing amid the green waves.