War Zone

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Temple was larger than Armand had realised from the distance. Partially ruined, it had in the moonlight a strange and dramatic appearance as if it were the set ting of a dream.

The pathway led him to the centre of the steps, some of which ascended into the opening between the marble pillars whole the others descended into the cool, silver and now undisturbed water. He stood waiting.

Far away in the darkness of the trees a nightingale was singing. He was conscious of the fragrance of roses and of the other flowers whose more exotic perfumes he did not recognise. Everything was very still and it

seemed as if even the trees and flowers waited. Suddenly she appeared, and although he had been expecting her, it was almost startling to see her.

She stood there flanked on either side by the pillars, her feet making no sound as she moved forward from

the darkness of the doorway into the moonlight.

She was humming a little tune to herself, and now that the silence was broken it was almost as if a full orchestra crashed into a paean of triumph.

She was lovely! Armand, who had known many beautiful women in his life, caught his breath at the sheer untouched perfection of her loveliness.

She was not tall, but the grace with which she car ried herself and the exquisite manner in which her head was poised on her long neck gave an impression both of height and dignity.

Her face was heart-shaped, her dark hair growing into a distinct point in the centre of her smooth white forehead. Her eyes were very large with dark-fringed eye-lashes, and between them was a tiny straight patri cian nose which was somehow at variance with the warm and inviting curves of her red mouth.

Her lips were parted, her eyes wide and shining as she stared up for a moment at the moon, quite oblivious that anyone was watching her.

She was wearing a robe of some diaphanous materi al, caught beneath her breasts with silver ribbons, and round her bare arms and over one shoulder was thrown a wrap of white velvet trimmed with swansdown.

It seemed to Armand watching her that it was fitting that she should come from the Temple and never had a goddess who had stepped from Olympus been bet ter fitted to play the part.

The little tune she was humming died away. She looked again at the moon and sighed as if she breathed a wish or a prayer and watched it wing its way towards the heavens. But some instinct must have told her that she was being watched.

She turned her head quickly and saw Armand. For a moment neither moved, and then the girl's hand went towards her breast as if to quieten the sudden beating of her heart.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" she in quired, her voice low and sweet though slightly tinged with fear.

Armand stood bare-headed and bowed.

"I am a trespasser in fairyland, Mademoiselle." "Trespasser, certainly," was the cold reply. "Please leave immediately the way you came." "You could not be so cruel," Armand protested.

Without waiting for her to speak again he walked up the steps and stood by her side so that she could see him clearly by the light of the moon.

She looked him squarely in the face for a moment or two before she spoke. Then she asked: "What do you want?"

"Nothing!" Armand replied. "I am a traveller who has lost his way, or should I say found it into an en chanted world of make-believe?"

It seemed for a moment as if his answer reassured her. It was as if she had been expecting something more formidable. Her hand no longer trembled at her breast and she replied calmly and in unhurried tones: "These grounds are private! You will please with draw."

"May I first ask on whose authority you give such orders?" Armand asked. The girl drew herself up and her voice was proud as

she replied:

"On my own! I am the Comtesse Rêve de Valmont,

and the grounds are mine."

"Rêve!" Armand repeated softly. "Then I am not mistaken! This is a dream and you are the dream within it."

"A dream, Sir, to which there will be a rude awak ening if you do not leave immediately." "And if I refuse?" Armand asked.

His eyes met hers for a moment and then quickly she looked away. She looked round the dark silence of the wood and he knew that she was aware of the futility of her own threats. He saw the sudden sense of her own helplessness sweep over her and instantly he took a step backwards.

"Forgive mel" he said. "I was but teasing you. If you wish me to go, I will go at once."

Now that he had capitulated so completely, it seemed that her curiosity was aroused. She looked him up and down, noting his handsome face, the well-cut, expensive clothes and the flash of diamonds on his little finger. "You say you

are a traveller, Sir. Perhaps you have lost your way?" "Not my way," Armand replied, "but something in

finitely more valuable." "Indeed!"

Her eyebrows were arched in interrogation.

"It is something which has never happened to me before," Armand said; "yet as I stood among the dis tant trees, having, I admit, Mademoiselle, climbed into your property through a broken wall, I saw something so beautiful, so exquisite, that my heart flew from my body and is, I believe, lost to me for ever."

Her hands fluttered and her eyes could not look at

his. "You-you mean you-you have been here-for some time?" she stammered.

"For a few seconds-for the whole of eternity. In fact for a moment that cannot be measured by the mun dane confines of the passing hours." He watched the colour rise in her cheeks, making

her if possible more beautiful, and then at length with

a gesture which somehow combined both pride and a

sweet shyness, she said:

"I must ask you, Sir, to remember that you were trespassing and that what you saw was not intended for your eyes or for anyone else's."

"I can remember nothing save that you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen in my whole life."

His voice was very low and though she looked at him in sudden fright she did not move away. They were both of them conscious of some under-current which drew them together, some magnetism which passed be tween them both, making everything seem strange and yet pulsatingly alive.

It changed the very words they uttered and charging them with an excitement and a magic which utterly transformed the sense of everything that was said.

For a moment neither could move. They could only stand looking at each other, their eyes held by a power stronger than that of their own wills and of their own thoughts.

Armand was conscious that his own heart was beat ing quickly. He could see a pulse throbbing in the white throat of the girl who faced him and knew that her breath was coming quickly between the sweetness of her parted lips.

Now in a voice hardly above a whisper she asked: "Who are you?"

It was a tremendous effort to bring himself back to reality.

"I am Armand de Ségury," he replied, "travelling to Paris from my hone in Normandy."

"Armand de Ségury," she repeated. "How strange!