This thrilled her with an ache of mother-pity. She saw him misunderstood, unhappy, and instantly her heart wrapped him about with protection. In that moment his faults were all condoned—she saw them only as the fruits of his loneliness.
Later, “Mary,” he said, “yours is the most beautiful of all names. Poets and painters have glorified it in every age, but none as I shall do”; and he kissed her adoringly.
Again, he held his cheek to hers. “Beloved,” he whispered, “when we are married” (even as he spoke he marveled at himself that the word should come so naturally) “I want to paint you as you really are—a goddess of beauty and love.”
She thrilled in response to him, half fearful, yet exalted. She was his, utterly.
As they clung together he saw her winged, a white flame of love, a goddess elusive even in yielding. He aspired, and saw her, Cytheria-like, shining above yet toward him. But her vision, leaning on his heart, was of those two still and close together, nestling beneath Love's protecting wings, while between their hands she felt the fingers of a little child.
VII
That night Mary and Stefan spoke only of love, but the morning brought plans. Before breakfast they were together, pacing the sun-swept deck.
Mary took it for granted that their engagement would continue till Stefan's pictures were sold, till they had found work, till their future was in some way arranged. Stefan, who was enormously under her influence, and a trifle, in spite of his rapture, in awe of her sweet reasonableness, listened at first without demur. After breakfast, however, which they ate together, he occupying the place of a late comer at her table after negotiation with the steward, his impatient temperament asserted itself in a burst.