“Bissy!”
He was as pale as death; he stood as if suddenly stricken mute. The boy, all honour to his elfin intelligence, showed his instant appreciation of the situation. He did not consider right or wrong; it was enough that these two, his dearest patrons, wished to meet—for whatever reason was their own business.
“Go through the grove, signore,” he whispered, “to the little sward by the river. I will fetch her to come and look at my oranges. She has that cagna Fanchette with her, as sour and sullen as a duchess. But she shall not spy; I will see to that. Go, signore!”
And Tiretta obeyed—a mere pawn at last in the game of this conquering strategist. He put his hand one moment on the squat shoulder, then turned and passed to his destiny. Ecstasy filled the air; the voice of the little river rose jubilant to greet him; he paused at last on that embowered isthmus amid the inviolable trees. Minutes passed; his heart was beating to suffocation, and then—a quick light footfall—a quick febrile whisper:
“Bonbec!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
RAPTURE
“It is only for one hurried moment. I dare not stop. O, my heart beats so!”
He held her hands; he gazed as if he could never fill the hunger of his soul; for a minute he failed to speak. In all his passionate dreams he had never pictured her as returning to him like this—black clad—like an angel of death. The contrast between her lily complexion and the deep sadness of her robe was even startling. In his first glowing stupefaction, an odd thought hung like a mote in his mind—like a travelling speck under closed lids. It was a perplexed association of this mourning with something he had just been thinking about. With something—with what? Dead men and green things that blossomed! What was it? He expanded his chest over the idleness of the fancy, easing it away in a great rapturous sigh. And then it came to him. The dead mother! And he had been thinking only of dead love.
He drew her towards him without a word; and she made no resistance. She lifted her face to his as he bent, and conceded to him all that he wished.
“Now” he said deeply, “it is all as if it had never been—these dark disastrous months. Shut your eyes, my soul’s beloved, and listen. Hark! that was a bat that flew past: and do you hear the whispering wash of the moonlight against the trees, and the tiny crackle of the stars? What is all this talk about a parting, to us who have never moved from this balcony where to-night we put an everlasting seal upon our love? Have we been dreaming while we clung together? Though it were a dream, Isabel, tell me I was not forgotten in it.”