"Like this forever! I ask nothing better," said I with great heartiness; but neither her eyes nor her thoughts were for me. Would the eyes looking so intently at the sinking sun, I wondered, condescend to look at a spot against the sun. In desperation I meditated standing up. 'Tis all very well to talk of storming the citadel of a closed heart, but unless telepathic implements of war are perfected to the same extent as modern armaments, permitting attack at long range, one must first get within shooting distance. Apparently I was so far outside the defences, even my design was unknown.
"I think," she began in low, hesitating words, so clear and thrilling, they set my heart beating wildly with a vague expectation, "I think heaven must be very, very near on nights like this, don't—you—Rufus?"
I wasn't thinking of heaven at all, at least, not the heaven she had in mind; but if there is one thing to make a man swear white is black and black white and to bring him to instantaneous agreement with any statement whatsoever, it is to hear his Christian name so spoken for the first time. I sat up in an electrified way that brought the fringe of lashes down to hide those gray eyes.
"Very near? Well rather! I've been in heaven all day," I vowed. "I've been getting glimpses of paradise all the way from Fort William——"
"Don't," she interrupted with a flash of the imperious nature, which I knew. "Please don't, Mr. Gillespie."
"Please don't Mister Gillespie me," said I, piqued by a return to the formal. "If you picked up Rufus by mistake from the priest, he sets a good example. Don't drop a good habit!"
That was my first step inside the outworks.
"Rufus," she answered so gently I felt she might disarm and slay me if she would, "Rufus Gillespie"—that was a return of the old spirit, a compromise between her will and mine—"please don't begin saying that sort of thing—there's a whole day before us——"
"And you think I can't keep it up?"
"You haven't given any sign of failing. You know, Rufus," she added consolingly, "you really must not say those things, or something will be hurt! You'll make me hurt it."