A couple of distracted humming-bird moths zoomed and crashed about the oil lamp I had set on the table. Apart from the lamp, it was dark on the terrace, a faint glow from a second lamp down in the Long Room, a wash of soft moon flooding the land, silvering...
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A couple of distracted humming-bird moths zoomed and crashed about the oil lamp I had set on the table. Apart from the lamp, it was dark on the terrace, a faint glow from a second lamp down in the Long Room, a wash of soft moon flooding the land, silvering the olives. At the stream the frogs sang and fiddled, and far away, on the de Terrehaute land, probably in the giant cedar, a little owl called. Otherwise, all was still. This was another part of the day which I relished, as much almost as the early dawn. Giles in bed, Clotilde and Mon-Ami long gone, and nothing but these familiar, gentle sounds and the soft shadows of the moon giving way to darkest black under the trees. The anguish of the day with Joanna almost faded. Fourteen years of my life were ebbing away. I took a sip of whiskey, the lump of ice tinkled like a bell, and then I saw the headlights of a car pencilling over the wall, wavering across the cypress trees down at the bottom by the gate. They were extinguished as I got
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