"Then I will not trust you," she answered, smiling.
"Better trust me," I said; and something in my words again made her look down.
"You will trust me?" I pleaded, and the something in my words grew plainer.
Still no answer.
"Oh, trust me!"
The hand quivered in mine an instant, the eyes looked up and laughed once more. "I will trust you," she said—"not to move from this spot until I am out of sight."
Then with a light "Good-bye" she was gone, and I was left to vaguely comprehend my loss.
Before long I had seen her a third time and yet once again. I had learnt her name to be Luttrell—Claire Luttrell; how often did I not say the words over to myself? I had also confided in Tom and received his hearty condolence, Tom being in that stage of youth which despises all of which it knows nothing—love especially, as a thing contrary to nature's uniformity. So Tom was youthfully cynical, and therefore by strange inference put on the airs of superior age; was also sceptical of my description, especially a certain comparison of her eyes to stars, though a very similar trope occurred somewhere in the tragedy. Indeed therein Francesca's eyes were likened to the Pleiads, being apparently (as I pointed out with some asperity) seven in number, and one of them lost.
I had also seen Mrs. Luttrell, a worn and timid woman, with weak blue eyes and all the manner of the professional invalid. I say this now, but in those days she was in my eyes a celestial being mysteriously clothed in earth's infirmities—as how should the mother of Claire be anything else? Somehow I won the favour of this faded creature— chiefly, I suspect, because she liked so well to be left alone. All day long she would sit contentedly watching the river and waiting for Claire, yet only anxious that Claire should be happy. All her heart centred on her child, and often, in spite of our friendliness, I caught her glancing from Claire to me with a jealous look, as though the mother guessed what the child suspected but dimly, if at all.
So the summer slipped away, all too fleetly—to me, as I look back after these weary years, in a day. But nevertheless much happened: not much that need be written down in bald and pitiless prose, but much to me who counted and treasured every moment that held my darling near me. So the Loves through that golden season wound us round with their invisible chains and hovered smiling and waiting. So we drifted week after week upon the river, each time nearer and nearer to the harbour of confession. The end was surely coming, and at last it came.