“If I might love you!” he whispered, imprisoning the soft palm, and gathering it fearfully to his breast. “But it is madness.”
“I thought you meant to show me so,” she answered—“that that was why you avoided me.”
“And if I did—what else was possible?” A long ecstatic sigh quivered from his lips. “I must go,” he said. “It is the only way. You must forget me and forgive me.” He bent suddenly, and looked in her face; and his voice broke. “O, my love, my love—keep back your tears!”
Gently she released her hand, turning away from him. And he strode a step or two, hither and thither, in unbearable pain.
“Why have they laid this cruelty on us?” he said. “I cannot live and endure it. Tell me to go.”
“I cannot.”
So near inaudible—so whispered from a bursting heart! He felt as if his own heart would break with the rapture of it. Again he turned from her, and strode forth and back.
“Prometheus!” he cried. “Give me my fire! I defy the gods! Afloat on the long drift of dreams—everything surrendered; everything believed possible; no to-morrow to this ecstasy. Isabel, we will be sweet lovers, my sweet love.”
One beautiful moment, in that embowered place, he held her in his arms; then put her gently from him.
“That I must teach you duplicity!” he said—“so truthful, so innocent! But we must be circumspect, or the dream will end. It is all a dream, is it not, dear love?”