He stood pretending to examine these things, and coveting,
passionately desiring the green door.
Then, he said, he had a gust of emotion. He made a run for
it, lest hesitation should grip him again, he went plump with
outstretched hand through the green door and let it slam behind
him. And so, in a trice, he came into the garden that has haunted
all his life.
It was very difficult for Wallace to give me his full sense of
that garden into which he came.
There was something in the very air of it that exhilarated,
that gave one a sense of lightness and good happening and well
being; there was something in the sight of it that made all its
colour clean and perfect and subtly luminous. In the instant of
coming into it one was exquisitely glad--as only in rare moments
and when one is young and joyful one can be glad in this world.
And everything was beautiful there . . . . .
Wallace mused before he went on telling me. "You see," he
said, with the doubtful inflection of a man who pauses at
incredible things, "there were two great panthers there . . . Yes,
spotted panthers. And I was not afraid. There was a long wide
path with marble-edged flower borders on either side, and these two
huge velvety beasts were playing there with a ball. One looked up
and came towards me, a little curious as it seemed. It came right
up to me, rubbed its soft round ear very gently against the small
hand I held out and purred.
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