"You said," she began, "if armies came between us, they could not break the little thread. Suppose I go away?"
"That wouldn't break it. Don't you suppose my thought can run to London or Rome? It isn't worth much if it can't."
"Suppose I"—she stopped, appalled at herself for the thought, but jealously anxious to be told.
"Suppose you marry the prince? That would be dreadful, because you don't love him. But it wouldn't break the thread. It would muffle it, I guess. We couldn't think back and forth on it. But it would be there."
Immediately it seemed to her that she had something even more precious than she had guessed, something not to be imperiled.
"I must not do anything to muffle it," she said. "Either with the prince—or any one."
"The only thing I'm afraid of," he went on, "is that you won't stand up to your father. Why, you must, playmate, if you feel like that about him."
She answered bitterly.
"I am afraid, I suppose."
Osmond spoke out sharply in the tone of a man who dismisses dreams.