CHAPTER XII.
IL PENSEROSO
Once more the two sat together in the high bower overlooking the glen. No churlish weather had, in all the short course of their idyll, marred its perfection, and still the sun shone and the air breathed honied upon their happy meetings. But on this occasion the girl was pensive and quiet as Brion had never known her to be before, and for some reason the fact disturbed him. She was never anything but physically tranquil—a pretty pacific creature whose graces were all on the side of soft rounded ease and caressing movements; yet her young brain lacked nothing in bright activity, and it was her present failure to respond in kind to his livelier mood which filled the boy with an inexplicable feeling like foreboding. He was made so uneasy at last by her unresponsiveness that he was driven to rally her upon it:—
‘What ails you, Joan, that you are so silent?’
She did not answer for a moment, but sat looking down sidelong, idly plucking at the blades of grass.
‘Joan?’ he persisted.
She just raised her lids in a swift glance at him, then drooped them again, and a flush came to her cheek.
‘We have been good friends, have we not, Brion?’ she said, her face still half averted from him.
‘Have been, Joan! Why not are, and will be?’
Her fingers grew busier at their plucking.
‘How can I tell? Maids must come to marry.’