She stood looking wide-eyed at him, as if he were an apparition; but she did not speak—a woman where had been a child; ripeness where had been promise. Yet he would have laughed to scorn the thought of one doubt possessing his heart. How could it, seeing that her image had never ceased to dwell there?
‘Do you not know me?’ he pleaded. Drollery quivered in him. ‘One does not cry out,’ he said, ‘before one’s chickens are hatched. The moment I heard that, “Joan for a ducat!” says I; and without your turning I knew you.’
He searched her face, grown in knowledge and in sweet self-consciousness; but unchanged in its flower-like complexion, its dear blue eyes, its straight level brows: he searched it, pleading for recognition and remembrance, and, searching, there suddenly were the little flickering betraying dimples at the wings of the short nose.
‘Ah! you do know me?’ he said, with a great jubilant sigh. ‘Say who I am, Joan.’
‘Brion,’ she half whispered, and something seemed to throb in her white throat.
‘Yes, Brion, Joan. How sweet it is to hear my name upon your lips again! Is not this wonderful? Come where we can talk in quiet. We have such thousands of things to tell one another. What are you doing with gingerbread ships at your age?’
He laughed, and choked, and bantered, dancing with excitement.
‘I was going to eat it on the Hoe,’ she said. ‘I have eaten one near every week since you sailed away in a ship. I used to eat men.’
‘What is that? How did you know I sailed?’
‘I was on the Quay. I saw you go down to the boat. I was sure it was you; and then I heard one point to you by name.’