“Your mind, too, is troubled. How can I be so close to you and not feel it. Bonbec, I am afraid of to-morrow.”
“Come away with me then—here, to-night. I will get horses, and we will fly northwards—Isabel—to the unknown Eros! He gave us to one another—O, long long past in the beautiful gardens!—and I cannot live without you, beloved. Duty, honour, reason—throw them all to the wolves, so that our love alone remain to us.”
She clasped her white arms about his neck, and with one soft hand caressed the hair from his forehead.
“Would it remain, dear my lord? Or would you not come to grudge the price you paid for it? And yet I love you so that I must risk it; but not till every other hope is gone.”
“What hope, Isabel?”
“Ah! I do not know. But give me that plea of desperation for my pretext. Then, at last, if you call to me I will come.”
“My princess; my true heart!”
“Not your princess, but your slave, Bonbec.”
“My bird, then.”
“O, yes, indeed—caught captive by a song, and trembling in your hand.”