"How beautiful you are!" said he; and kissed her again as they reached the sombre dark-panelled vestibule.
"Fie!" said she with a shade of testiness and pushed him back, as her little black page ran to open the door.
The kiss, like his talk, lacked any heightening of tone—and what of a lover's kiss that shows no new ardour, what of a vow of love that has no new colour, no fresh imagery? But the trees in Queen Square were lightly leafed with pale, golden-green. The sunshine was white-gold, the breeze fresh and laughing; the old grey town was decked as with garlands of Young Love.
"He is but new to it," she argued against her fleeting doubts, "and he is, sure, the prettiest youth in all Bath."
Love and Spring danced in Mistress Kitty's light heart and light heels as she tripped forth. And Love and Spring gathered and strove and sought outlet in Verney's soul as inevitably, and irresistibly, and almost as unconsciously as the sap in the young shoots that swayed under the caress of the breeze and amorously unfurled themselves to the sunlight.
*****
The Pump Room was cool and dim after the grey stone street upon which the young year's sunshine beat as fierce as its youth knew how. The water droned its little song as it welled up, faintly steaming.
"Listen to it," quoth Mistress Kitty. "How innocent it sounds, how dear it looks!"
With a smile she took the glass transferred to her by Verney, and: "Ugh!" said she, "how monstrous horrid it tastes, to be sure! 'Tis, I fear," she said, again casting a glance of some anxiety at her new lover's countenance, "a symbol of life."
"Yet," said he, "these waters are said to be vastly wholesome."