A conscious look came into his face. His
voice died away abruptly. After a pause he said"
"Perhaps the signora is not fond of music?"
Lady Holme wanted to speak, but she could not. She and this bright-eyed
boy were not in the same world. That was what she felt. He did not know
it, but she knew it. And one world cannot speak through infinite space
with another.
She said nothing. The boy looked over his shoulder at his companion.
Then, in silence, they both rowed on.
And now that the song had ceased she was again in the grey chaos of the
dream, in the irrevocable emptiness, the intense, the enormous solitude
that was like the solitude of an unpeopled eternity in which man had no
lot.
Presently, with a stroke of his right oar, the boy who had sung turned
the boat's prow toward the shore, and Lady Holme saw a large, lonely
house confronting them on the nearer bank of the lake. It stood apart.
For a long distance on either side of it there was no other habitation.
The flat, yellow facade rose out of the water. Behind was a dim tangle of
densely-growing trees rising up on the steep mountain side towards the
grey sky. Lady Holme could not yet see details. The boat was still too
far out upon the lake. Nor would she have been able to note details if
she had seen them. Only a sort of heavy impression that this house had a
pale, haunted aspect forced itself dully upon her.
"Ecco Casa Felice, signora!" said the foremost rower, half timidly,
pointing with his brown hand.
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