Those eyes of hers that he had, even at their first meeting, compared to a mountain stream in their depth, their varying colour, were still fixed with gravity upon him.
"You looked for me to say good-bye?" she said simply.
"No," said Steven.
He drew himself a little closer to her, as he lay his length on the ground. The scent of the crushed weeds, the small aromatic nameless growths beneath him, sprang to his nostrils. He propped himself on his elbows and leaned his chin on his clasped hands, returning her gaze masterfully.
"Mademoiselle Sidonia, it is true that I am going soon, but I do not mean to go away alone. I have told your uncle how unfit I consider him to be your guardian. He cannot dispute the point with me, and he has owned that you ought to have another. Will you trust me to take care of you?" The eyes fixed upon him widened, questioning, innocent, yet profound. "I should call you my wife," he went on in a low voice, all astonished himself that his heart should suddenly beat so fast. Her glance never wavered, but he could see the scarlet dye her cheek. "Sidonia, will you come with me?" he cried. And now he was on his knees, quite close to her.
"I will go with you," she replied.
Her child eyes were still upon him and seemed to ask for something yet. And at this, he bent and kissed her, gently, as he would have kissed a child, and did not guess that, at the touch of his lips, Sidonia's woman's soul was born.
The autumn month was kind to the short, bewildering time of Steven and Sidonia's betrothal, and gave them, day after day, a fair sky and joyous sunshine.
It was something of a strange business. Steven ascended the crag at least twice in the twelve hours to meet his little bride, up in the blue, among the rocks or the ruins. He had decided not to break bread again with the Burgrave, not even to enter the Burg until the wedding morning; and Sidonia approved this stern decision. And so their wooing had for its setting the barren crags, the scanty verdure, the keen airs of Wellenshausen heights; its only witnesses the great ravens, and occasionally some soaring hawk, cruising watchful and keen, pirate of the high seas of blue. Thus Sidonia became associated in Steven's mind with the pungent scents of all mountain herbs, the briskness of all mountain breezes. He could have sworn that about her small person itself there was a myrtle fragrance.
Her presence became as grateful as the wild nature about him, and made as few demands upon him. Of love-making, in the accepted sense, there was none between them. He touched her still as reverently as he had touched the sleeper in the oubliette. He could not disabuse himself of the feeling that she was under his protection; that he must guard her, innocent, confident, maiden, sprite, child; guard her even from himself, from his man's knowledge, his man's power. It was instinct, not calculation, that kept him within such idyllic bounds. But, as it was, he felt mightily pleased with himself and consequently with her. Through some vein of idealism—richest treasure of youth as yet unrealized—his whole nature was flattered with the sense of his own chivalry, with the delicacy of the poem. Never for an instant did he repent his impulsive bargain.