Going to the other end of the gallery, she found there a low chair and sat down, leaning her head against the railing. It was the middle of the night. Something in the place and in the balm of the air brought back to her those days and nights in Alexandria, so long ago. There, too, she had had to make choice.... "I could love him here and now--love him--love him in the old immemorial way.... Well, I will not!" She put her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. "_Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh_"--it struck through her mind, slow and heavily vibrant, like a deep and melancholy music. She rose and paced the gallery again, but when she came to the farther end, she turned without pause or look over the moonlit town.
"_Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh_"--she made it rhythmic, breathing deeply and quietly, saying the name inwardly, deeply, but without passion now, saying it like a comrade's name. "_Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh--_"
Calm came at last, repose of mind, victory. She sat down again, leaned her arms upon the railing, and followed with her eyes the lonely, silver moon. Work was in the world, the all-friend Work; and Beauty was in the world, the all-friend Beauty; and one good put out of reach, mind and spirit must make another and were equal to the task. "Rose Darragh--Rose Darragh!--not if I could would I hurt you," said Hagar; and took her attention from that matter and put it first upon the stars, and then upon some lines of Shelley's that she loved, and then upon the story she had in hand. It was not well to go to bed thinking of a story, and when at last she left the gallery and laid herself straight upon the cool linen, she stilled the waves of the mind-stuff and let the barque of attention drift whither it would. At last she seemed in a deep forest long ago and far away, and there she went to sleep with a feeling of violets under her hand.
Five days, and Denny left Nassau. "It's not saying good-bye. In May, when you come to New York--"
"Yes, in May I'll see you and Rose Darragh. Until May, then--"
Denny and she clasped hands, both hands. "Thank God for friends!" he said with the odd little laugh that she liked, with the catch in the voice at the end of it as though he had started to laugh and then Life had come in. His eyes were misty. He brushed his hand across them. "You are dancing before me," he said apologetically.