If we were snowed up in this room, we'd be the better for reading scores of books in that bookcase that we don't even know are there; we'd have talks with each other, good, terrible talks, that we shall go to the grave without guessing; we'd find materials for everything-- christening, marriage, or funeral; yes, even for a coronation-- if we didn't decide to be a republic."
"A coronation on `Swiss Family' lines, I suppose," said Michael, laughing.
"Oh, I know you would find everything in that atmosphere. If we wanted such a simple thing, for instance, as a Coronation Canopy, we should walk down beyond the geraniums and find the Canopy Tree in full bloom.
If we wanted such a trifle as a crown of gold, why, we should be digging up dandelions, and we should find a gold mine under the lawn.
And when we wanted oil for the ceremony, why I suppose a great storm would wash everything on shore, and we should find there was a Whale on the premises."
"And so there IS a whale on the premises for all you know," asseverated Smith, striking the table with passion.
"I bet you've never examined the premises! I bet you've never been round at the back as I was this morning-- for I found the very thing you say could only grow on a tree.
There's an old sort of square tent up against the dustbin; it's got three holes in the canvas, and a pole's broken, so it's not much good as a tent, but as a Canopy--" And his voice quite failed him to express its shining adequacy; then he went on with controversial eagerness: "You see I take every challenge as you make it. I believe every blessed thing you say couldn't be here has been here all the time.
You say you want a whale washed up for oil. Why, there's oil in that cruet-stand at your elbow; and I don't believe anybody has touched it or thought of it for years.
And as for your gold crown, we're none of us wealthy here, but we could collect enough ten-shilling bits from our own pockets to string round a man's head for half an hour; or one of Miss Hunt's gold bangles is nearly big enough to--"
The good-humoured Rosamund was almost choking with laughter.
"All is not gold that glitters," she said, "and besides--"
"What a mistake that is!" cried Innocent Smith, leaping up in great excitement. "All is gold that glitters-- especially now we are a Sovereign State. What's the good of a Sovereign State if you can't define a sovereign?
We can make anything a precious metal, as men could in the morning of the world. They didn't choose gold because it was rare; your scientists can tell you twenty sorts of slime much rarer.
They chose gold because it was bright--because it was a hard thing to find, but pretty when you've found it.
You can't fight with golden swords or eat golden biscuits; you can only look at it--an you can look at it out here."
With one of his incalculable motions he sprang back and burst open the doors into the garden. At the same time also, with one of his gestures that never seemed at the instant so unconventional as they were, he stretched out his hand to Mary Gray, and led her out on to the lawn as if for a dance.
The French windows, thus flung open, let in an evening even lovelier than that of the day before. The west was swimming with sanguine colours, and a sort of sleepy flame lay along the lawn. The twisted shadows of the one or two garden trees showed upon this sheen, not gray or black, as in common daylight, but like arabesques written in vivid violet ink on some page of Eastern gold.
The sunset was one of those festive and yet mysterious conflagrations in which common things by their colours remind us of costly or curious things.
The slates upon the sloping roof burned like the plumes of a vast peacock, in every mysterious blend of blue and green. The red-brown bricks of the wall glowed with all the October tints of strong ruby and tawny wines.
The sun seemed to set each object alight with a different coloured flame, like a man lighting fireworks; and even Innocent's hair, which was of a rather colourless fairness, seemed to have a flame of pagan gold on it as he strode across the lawn towards the one tall ridge of rockery.
"What would be the good of gold," he was saying, "if it did not glitter?
Why should we care for a black sovereign any more than for a black sun at noon? A black button would do just as well.
Don't you see that everything in this garden looks like a jewel?
And will you kindly tell me what the deuce is the good of a jewel except that it looks like a jewel? Leave off buying and selling, and start looking! Open your eyes, and you'll wake up in the New Jerusalem.
"All is gold that glitters--
Tree and tower of brass;
Rolls the golden evening air Down the golden grass.
Kick the cry to Jericho, How yellow mud is sold, All is gold that glitters, For the glitter is the gold."
"And who wrote that?" asked Rosamund, amused.
"No one will ever write it," answered Smith, and cleared the rockery with a flying leap.
"Really," said Rosamund to Michael Moon, "he ought to be sent to an asylum.
Don't you think so?"
"I beg your pardon," inquired Michael, rather sombrely; his long, swarthy head was dark against the sunset, and, either by accident or mood, he had the look of something isolated and even hostile amid the social extravagance of the garden.
"I only said Mr. Smith ought to go to an asylum," repeated the lady.
The lean face seemed to grow longer and longer, for Moon was unmistakably sneering. "No," he said; "I don't think it's at all necessary."
"What do you mean?" asked Rosamund quickly. "Why not?"
"Because he is in one now," answered Michael Moon, in a quiet but ugly voice.
"Why, didn't you know?"
"What?" cried the girl, and there was a break in her voice; for the Irishman's face and voice were really almost creepy.
With his dark figure and dark sayings in all that sunshine he looked like the devil in paradise.
"I'm sorry," he continued, with a sort of harsh humility.
