Above all, she had not seen, as women must see before they become a power in the world, that the one point on which all races meet, no matter what their religion, no matter what their ideals, no matter what their standard of morality, is that which makes '_Petit Trianon_' possible. In other words, the woman's attitude towards the man; an attitude so strangely at variance with the sex-laws of nature. Yet of the beauty of this garden who could doubt? Within that fringe of blossoming trees, a wide aqueduct-like a shining cross-lay, edged by mosaicked marble causeways, that were raised above and in their turn edged by a perfect wilderness of flowers. And this wider cross, composed of flowers, mosaic, water, was set in dense thickets of oranges and pomegranates. In this late afternoon all the sunshine seemed concentrated in the cross. Great shafts of yellow light streamed down its limbs, seeming to darken all the rest. In the centre where the limbs met, a group of fountains sent fine feathers into the air, and through their sparkle the gold and marble of the summer-house gleamed amid its sentinels of cypress, at the far end of the garden. There was a cloying sweetness in the air. A flight of jewelled parrots flew screaming from one screen of flowering trees to the other, as if even they--winged creatures as they were--could not escape the thraldom of those high walls, hidden by leaf and blossom. That sense of prisonment--the prisonment of pleasure--lay heavy on Lesley as she paused, half-unconsciously, before a tiny latticed retreat--the daintiest little retreat in the world--which, just at the opposite end of the shining cross from the gilt summer-house, rose out of the water. Made of marble fretwork, with a domed top, it looked like a lace veil moulded into the form of a singing-bird's cage; and its latticed seclusion was only connected with the causeway on either side of it, by a foot-wide ledge of mosaic. Lesley, having been in the garden before, knew the purpose this retreat had served in the past, and her involuntary pause beside it prolonged itself in half-disdainful wonder. For this had been the sanctuary. Here had been refuge even from the pleasures of the garden, and hither, if any woman, high or low, chose to appeal for redress, majesty itself had been bound to come and listen, leaving majesty and manhood behind it. That, at least, was the idea. The retreat itself was more suggestive of beauty gaining in power by seclusion; and Lesley's lip curled with more disdain as she looked at the finnikin filagree cage. Her expression, however, changed to curiosity as she realised that some one was sitting inside it. She crossed the ledge of mosaic swiftly, and, stooping under the laced edge of a low arch, went in.