He determined to make his love known without delay and establish
himself as a regular suitor.
As upon the previous day, he broke into the glade before he
suspected its presence, to find the same golden light-beams
flickering in the shadowed depths and to hear the little waterfall
chuckling at his surprise. There was the tree from which she had
called to him, yonder the bench where they had sat together.
Of course, he was too early--he wanted to be, in order not to miss
an instant of her company, so he seated himself and dreamed about
her. The minutes dragged, the jungle drowsed. An hour passed. A
thousand fresh, earthy odors breathed around him, and he began to
see all sorts of flowers hidden away in unsuspected places. From
the sunlit meadows outside came a sound of grazing herds, the deep
woods faintly echoed the harsh calls of tropic birds, but at the
pool itself a sleepy silence brooded.
Once a chattering squirrel came bravely rustling through the
branches to the very edge of the enchanted bower, but he only sat
and stared a moment in seeming admiration, then retreated quietly.
A yellow-beaked toucan, in a flash of red and black and gold,
settled upon a mirrored limb; but it, too, stilled its raucous
tongue and flitted away on noiseless pinions as if the Naiads were
asleep.
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