Part Two In Al-Kyris Chapter 27 In The Temple of Nagaya

The hours wore on with stealthy rapidity,--but the two friends, reclining together under a deep-branched canopy of cypress-boughs, paid little or no heed to the flight of time. The heat in the garden was intense--the grass was dry and brittle as though it had been scorched by passing flames,--and a singularly profound stillness reigned everywhere, there being no wind to stir the faintest rustle among the foliage. Lying lazily upon his back, with his arms clasped above his head, Theos looked dreamily up at the patches of blue sky seen between the dark-green gnarled stems and listened to the measured cadence of the Laureate's mellow voice as he recited with much tenderness the promised poem.

Of course it was perfectly familiar,--the lines were precisely the same as those which he, Theos, remembered to have written out, thinking them his own, in an old manuscript book he had left at home. "At-home!" ... Where was that? It must be a very long way off! ... He half-closed his eyes,--a sense of delightful drowsiness was upon him, . . the rise and fall of his friend's rhythmic utterance soothed him into a languid peace, . . the "Idyl of Roses" was very sweet and musical, and, though he knew it of old, he heard it now with special satisfaction, inasmuch as, it being no longer his, he was at liberty to bestow upon it that full measure of admiration which he felt it deserved!