Though this startling scene hung but an instant in stillness,
Inglewood had time to feel once more what he had felt when
he saw the other lovers standing on the lawn--the sensation
of a certain cut and coloured clearness that belongs rather
to the things of art than to the things of experience.
The broken flowerpot with its red-hot geraniums, the green
bulk of Smith and the black bulk of Warner, the blue-spiked
railings behind, clutched by the stranger's yellow vulture
claws and peered over by his long vulture neck, the silk hat
on the gravel, and the little cloudlet of smoke floating
across the garden as innocently as the puff of a cigarette--
all these seemed unnaturally distinct and definite.
They existed, like symbols, in an ecstasy of separation.
Indeed, every object grew more and more particular
and precious because the whole picture was breaking up.
Things look so bright just before they burst.
Long before his fancies had begun, let alone ceased,
Arthur had stepped across and taken one of Smith's arms.
Simultaneously the little stranger had run up the steps and taken
the other. Smith went into peals of laughter, and surrendered
his pistol with perfect willingness.
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