I smiled, recalling my own words so faithfully remembered.
“I promise you I will never submit to the tethering,” I said. “Rather, for your sake, I will emulate the golden one, leaping from rock to rock, and always, though pursued, unattainable.”
“If you would—ah, I could be so happy in following you,” said Fifine, “though my knees were bleeding all the way, and my nails torn from their fingers.”
“Poor little fingers! Well, in that case, counting me your assured ideal, what are your prejudices in favour of—the existing or the potential?”
“Then—I am only a woman, Felix—I should, I should like my love for you to be given a name—in case——”
She did not end her sentence; but I stooped and gathered her to my heart, and whispered:—
“Perhaps that is the ideal, Fifine. O, my sweet, how I am lost in love of you! But here comes in the question—what is immaterial to the bond we know, but there is something material to it, Fifine—the truth.”
She stole her arms about my neck; then leaned her head back, and looked at me steadily, passionately.
“Yes, Felix. How did you learn?”
“That Brooking girl, as it happened, had once given lessons in drawing to the Countess Josephine. She did not recognise in you her former pupil?”