“Zana, do you love me?”
“Do I love you? Yes, oh, yes!”
As the words left my soul, a calm, solemn contentment brooded down like a dove upon it. The feeling was too holy and sweet for blushes. It seemed to me as if I had partaken of an angel’s nature while uttering it. Up to that moment I had never dwelt upon the thought of love, save as a pleasant household feeling. The passion of love I did not even then comprehend, notwithstanding it beat in every pulse of my warm southern blood.
He took my hand, holding it with a firm, gentle pressure, and thus we walked on softly and still as the summer air moves among the daisies. I can imagine Adam and Eve walking thus in Paradise, when the temptation first crept across their path. I can imagine them starting at the evil thing, as we did when Irving’s tutor came suddenly upon us. He was a sweet-voiced, quiet man some ten years older than Irving, and a great favorite with Lady Catherine. I did not like his manners, they were fawning and yet cold—his very humility was oppressive.
“You walk slowly,” he said, in his calm, silky way; “no wonder, it is a delightful morning.”
Irving tightened his grasp on my hand.
“You can find the way home now,” he said, dropping it and turning away with his tutor.
“Nay, this is ungallant, Irving,” said that person, moving toward me; “you forget her arm seems hurt.”
“Yes, I had forgotten it,” was the reply, and he came back.
“Can you forgive me!”