“Have I not listened to you, Richard—with all my ears and heart?”
“Yes; but your guardian? The world?”
“What are they to us? I shall soon be my own mistress.”
“Yes, but—O, Ira! I wish I could say I shall soon be my own master.”
“You are master of me, and I am you, Richard. O, dear! are you going to break my heart after all you’ve said?”
I caught her to me once more in a rapture.
“You dear passionate baby! Do you realise to what, to whom you are binding yourself?”
“Yes, to my Richard, if you please; and if you abuse him any more, I shall cry in good earnest.”
How could I answer but in the terms of that lovers’ text-book which has endured since Eden? A silence fell between us; and then suddenly I felt myself shivering.
“We are a couple of fools, young woman,” I said, “love-making out here in the snow. That is not the way to provide against troubles that will need all our strength to meet them.”