"Do you realize the delightfulness of this episode?" he asked her abruptly. "It will be like an oasis in the desert to look back on. I should like you to forget this evening, that we are anything but just our two selves; there is no Prince, there is no Fröken Andersen, we are just you and I and nothing more. Yesterday we met, to-morrow we part, probably for ever, so that there can be no thought of past or future to embarrass us. There is no yesterday and no to-morrow, no time and no limitation of space; we are all the world, we are quite alone and detached from everything, you and I and the moon!"
His eyes were fastened on hers and held them; she could not have moved away had she wished.
She answered in an embarrassed way:
"You wish to stop the hands of the clock for this evening?"
"Exactly—with your help."
The romance of the situation appealed to her.
"The clock has stopped," she announced gravely.
"Thank you," he murmured raising her hand to his lips.
Ragna laughed uneasily; it seemed to her that she was living in some fairy tale.
The Prince led her to a deck chair and drew up another beside it. From where they sat they could see the moon and the light upon the water, but they were screened from the companion-way door, and indeed from most of the deck, by the ventilator of the saloon and the shadow of a life-boat. It was unusually warm for the North Sea, especially for so early in the season, and Ragna found her heavy cloak oppressive.