“Before this old Hevelius’ day,” said David. He drew another map from under the tossed book and flung it open for her, never heeding that it rested on the petals of her rose. “But see here, 1660—on a day of rejoicing for England—the King had returned to his own—what seemed to many to be a new star appeared, brightly burning. Flamsteed named it, out of the joy of the people, Cor Caroli—the Heart of Charles.”
“The heart of Charles,” she repeated. “It is pretty. What will you call yours?”
“I dare not name it yet,” he said.
“Dare not?” she echoed astonished.
“Lest it should belie me—fade and leave me the poorer,” he answered.
There came a silence. The clock punctuated the fitful rushing sound of the wind round the house, ticked off a minute of life for Ellinor as full of thought and as pregnant of possibility, as sweet and as rich in promise as any she had ever passed in her already eventful life.
She had the impression of some extraordinary happiness that might be hers; that yet was so elusive, so high, so shy a thing, that it would melt away in the grasp of human hands. She had, too, a little unreasonable foreboding, because her rose lay crushed under his astronomy. With a sigh at last, chiding herself for folly and dreams unworthy of her new life—she who had offered herself, and been accepted as his servant, no more—she moved away from the table.
The action roused him. He went with her. On the way to the door he made another halt, and indicated by a slight gesture the urbane countenance of that common ancestor whom Ellinor had addressed and who now, lighted up by a capricious ray, seemed to look down upon them with a living eye of favour. She stood confused as she remembered how boldly, as if by right of kinship, she had claimed aloud in that silent room the hospitality of Bindon.
“I only represent him here,” said he, divining her thought.
“Ah, cousin David,” said she, “say what you will, my father and I will always be deeply in your debt.”