Warm and deliciously fragrant, it swept the stiff wet Bermuda
grass upon the lawn of the Sherrill villa at Palm Beach, rustled the
crimson hedge of hibiscus, caught the subtle perfume of jasmine and
oleander and swept on to a purple-flowered vine on the white walls of
the villa, a fuller, richer thing for the ghost-scent of countless
flowers.
Into this gray-white world of glimmering coquina and dew-wet palm rode
presently the slim, brisk figure of a girl astride a fretful horse. A
royal palm dripped cool gray rain upon her as she galloped past to the
shell-road looming out of the velvet stillness ahead like a dim, white
ghost-trail.
The gray ocean murmured, the still gray lagoon was asleep! Here and
there a haunting, elusive splash of delicate rose upon the silver
promised the later color of a wakening world. It was a finer, quieter
world, thought Diane, than the later day world of white hot sunlight.
With pulses atune to the morning's freshness, the girl galloped rapidly
along the shell-road, the clattering thud of her horse's hoofs
startling in the quiet. As yet only a sleepy bird or two had begun to
twitter. There was a growing noise of wind in the grass and palms.
A century back it seemed to this girl in whom the restless gypsy tide
was subtly fretting, she had left Johnny and the van at Jacksonville to
come into this sensuous, tropical world of color, fashionable life and
lazy days.
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