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Oleander, chattering like a magpie with Lawyer Sardonyx, and anon laughing at all three with Sir Roger Trajenna. You might as well have tried to regulate the vagaries of a comet as well guess from what quarter the fickle wind would next blow. "Women are all puzzles," said Dr. Oleander, in quiet despair to Mrs. Walraven. "That is a truism long and tried; but, by Jove!
Oleander departed. His practice was extensive, and he had hosts of neglected patients to attend to. Mrs. Walraven saw nothing of him all next day; but in the evening of the succeeding day, and just as she was getting very uneasy, Dr. Oleander entered, pale and fagged. Dr. Oleander had spent a most harassing afternoon, his office besieged with applicants for that advertised situation.
He stood aimlessly up, and knocked a withered leaf of oleander from a tall branch that scented the spot where they were sitting, but instead of returning to his seat, he leaned his crossed arms on the back of her broad chair, and looking down on her, answered: "Why are you a little less generous to us, poor unfortunates than you are to every one else?"
On one of the lower slopes he came upon a villa just beyond a curve of the road, and reined in his horse. The villa nestled on the hillside below him in a terraced garden of oleander and magnolias, very pretty to the eye.
The baronet arrived, prompt to the hour, and was ushered at once into the presence of his enchantress. Fifteen minutes after came Dr. Oleander, shown by demure Margaret into the drawing-room; and scarcely was he seated when ting-a-ling! went the bell, and the door was opened to Mr. Hugh Ingelow. Mr. Ingelow was left to compose himself in the library.
Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the stars seemed very near.
No need for him to make inquiries of passing negroes; no need to ask where the House of Cardross might be found; for although he had seen it only by starlight, and the white sunshine now transformed everything under its unfamiliar glare, he remembered his way, étape by étape, from the foliated iron grille of Whitehall to the ancient cannon bedded in rusting trunnions; and from that mass of Spanish bronze, southward under the tall palms, past hedges of vermilion hibiscus and perfumed oleander, past villa after villa embowered in purple, white, and crimson flowering vines, and far away inland along the snowy road until, at the turn, a gigantic banyan tree sprawled across the sky and the lilac-odour of china-berry in bloom stole subtly through the aromatic confusion, pure, sweet, refreshing in all its exquisite integrity.
Walraven was no more than any other man, and stood up to take his arm. But there is many a slip. Miss Oleander and Mr. Walraven never danced that particular set, for just then there came a ring at the door-bell so pealing and imperious that it sounded sharply even through the noisy ball-room. "The Marble Guest, surely," Blanche said, "and very determined to be heard."
Both banks are lofty, but especially that to the south, where one of Lebanon's great roots strikes out far, and dips, a rocky precipice, into the bosom of the deep. Low in the depths of the gorge the mad torrent dashes over its rocky bed in sheets of foam, its banks fringed with oleander, which it bathes with its spray.
The two children have been placed in care of an excellent woman and are now living near their mother, so if she should ever ask for them they can be reached quickly. She has shown no sign as yet of wanting to see them. A sad case!" "Yes, and I wouldn't trust those sanitariums," spoke Miss Oleander. "They are often very tricky." "Neither would I," said a young woman across the table from Josie.
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