Arthur had started up, and glided to the floor, on his knees, had clasped his hands about her slender waist, and was looking earnestly and tenderly into her coy, half-averted face, as, half seriously and half in badinage, she made her plaint.
"Oh, Julia!"
"Nay, Arthur, I like it as it is. It was in your nature to have known me, and to have courted me in the old way; but it would have been poor and tame, and made up of a few faded flowers and scraps of verses; and think what I have had—a daring hero between me and a wild beast—a brave, devoted and passionate lover, who, in spite of scorn and rejection, hunted for me through night and tempest, to rescue me from death, who takes me up in his strong arms, carries me over a flood, and nourishes me back to life, and goes proudly away, asking nothing but the great boon of serving me. Oh! I had a thousand times rather have this! It is now a beautiful romance. But I am to have my ring, and"—
"Be my sweet and blessed sovereign lady; to be served and worshipped, and to hear music and poetry; whose word and wish is to be law in all the realm of love."
"From which you are not to depart for two full months of thirty-one days each."
Then she conducted him to the apartment in which we beheld her the night before.
"This," pushing open the door, into the room, warm and sweet with the odor of flowers, "is your own special room, to be yours, always."
"Always?" a little plaintively.
"Always—until—until—I—we give you another."
"Good night, Arthur."