Zyp had been with us a month, and surely never did changeling happen into a more congenial household.
Jason she still held at arm’s length, which, despite my admiration of my brother, I secretly congratulated my heart on, for—let me get over it at the outset—from first to last, I have never wavered in my passion of love for this wild, beautiful creature. The unexpectedness of her coming alone was a romance, the delight of which has never palled upon me with the deadening years. Therefore it was that I early made acquaintance with the demon of jealousy, than whom none, in truth, is more irresistible in his unclean strength and hideousness.
Zyp and I were one day wandering under the shadow of the mighty old cathedral of Winton.
“I don’t like it, Renny,” she said, pressing up close to me. “It’s awful and it’s grand, but there are always faces at the windows when I look up at them.”
“Whose?” I said, with a laugh.
“I don’t know,” she said; “but think of the thousands of old monks and things whose home it was once and whose ghosts are shut up among the stones. There!” she cried, pointing.
I looked at the old leaded window she indicated, but could see nothing.
“His face is like stone and he’s beckoning,” she whispered. “Oh, come along, Renny”—and she dragged me out of the grassy yard and never stopped hurrying me on till we reached the meadows. Here her gayety returned to her, and she felt at home among the flowers at once.
Presently we wandered into a grassy covert against a hedge on the further side of which a road ran, and threw ourselves among the “sauce alone” and wild parsley that grew there. Zyp was in one of her softest moods and my young heart fluttered within me. She leaned over me as I sat and talked to me in a low voice, with her fair young brow gone into wrinkles of thoughtfulness.
“Renny, what’s love that they talk about?”