Courts of Idleness by Dornford Yates Page B

heavy gun broke the silence suddenly. As the echoes rumbled into the hills, Robin stepped to the balustrade. The girl followed him.
    Starra lay all before them, twinkling in the sunshine about the bay, and, beyond, the dancing ocean stretched away till the sky met it.
    “Never knew they fired off guns here,” said Broke. “Never knew they had any to fire.”
    “Do they? Have they?”
    Robin looked sharply at his companion. “Didn’t you hear that one, just this moment?” he said.
    Phyllis Fettering shook her head.
    “I heard a steamer give a long hoot,” she said.
    “Hoot!” cried Broke. “This was a gun. You must have heard it. No steamer has hooted since we’ve been here.”
    “One did a moment ago – just before you got up. Surely you heard it. It must have been that Castle liner.” She indicated the great grey ship riding easily in the bay.
    “The sound I heard was made by a gun,” said Broke positively.
    “If you ask me,” said Phyllis, “I think this is another of your dreams.”
    “But you refuse to share it this time.”
    “You started for Thought without telling me.”
    “If I had told you, would you have come too?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Broke took a small bare hand into his own.
    “Whether you would have or not doesn’t matter now. In future you’ll always be there. That is why I shall go. You are such stuff as dreams are made of, dear. You—”
    The hand slipped from his. Miss Fettering turned suddenly and smiled into his eyes.
    “Anyway,” she said, “I’m not going there with you now, because I’m going back to lunch. But don’t let me take you out of your way. I know the ways of Starra just as well as you know those of Thought, though I’m afraid I haven’t a gallery of throats here.”
    “Three quarters of an hour ago,” said Broke, “a disastrous fire broke out in Bond Street, Past. No attempt was made to subdue the flames. Amongst other buildings the south wing of my gallery was almost completely destroyed.”
    “Oh!” said Phyllis.
    “Yes,” said Broke. “The only portion left standing was a room which had been recently added.”
     
    For the eleventh time Mrs Fairie placed a florin on impair .
    “It must turn up this time,” she said.
    After a tense moment:
    “ Le vingt ,” said the croupier.
    “Bill,” said his wife, “‘even’ has turned up twelve times running.”
    “Then put your shirt on odd,” said her husband shortly.
    Betty choked.
    “But I have,” she said in a shaking voice.
    “Do it again,” said Fairie, standing up and covering most of the numbers below twenty-five.
    Betty pinched him savagely. His involuntary cry of pain attracted some attention. A Frenchman on his right was courteously solicitous.
    “A mere nothing,” said Bill gravely. “A sudden brutal assault upon my person. That was all.”
    “ Le neuf ,” announced the croupier.
    “And I wasn’t on,” wailed Betty. “I can’t stand any more. Let’s go out into the garden. Come, Fay.”
    Rising, the two girls made their way to one of the French windows, Broke and Fairie following them.
    Night comes to Rih as a wizard, wand in hand. And Magic with her. Her very entrance is that of a sorcerer. There is no twilight at all. The shadows lengthen, but Rih knows no dusk. One minute it is yet evening – the quiet hour – and the next, night. In the twinkling of an eye the universe has shed her gay blue gown for one of violet, all glorious within, stiff with the broidery of myriad stars. From being an island, Rih has become an isle. Though there has been a breeze in the daytime, it will fall at sundown, so that from then till cock-crow Nature is very still. Not a leaf of all the foliage trembles, not a flower sways. It is as if a spell had been cast about the island, wrapping everything in the sleep of a fairy tale – an enchantment which only the caress of some destined lover’s lips may unloose.
    The four passed through the starlit garden to the edge of the low cliff,