“We need not crowd ourselves with the table,” he said. “There will be light enough. We only want to talk.”
“Very well,” said Marian, rising. “Will you give me that woolen thing that is on the sofa? It will do me for a shawl.” He placed it on her shoulders, and they went out.
“I will sit in this corner,” said Marian. “You are too big for the campstool. You had better bring a chair. I am fond of sitting here. When the crimson shade is on the lamp, and papa asleep in its roseate glow, the view is quite romantic: there is something ecstatically snug in hiding here and watching it.” Douglas smiled, and seated himself as she suggested, near her, with his shoulder against the stone balustrade.
“Marian,” said he, after a pause: “you remember what passed between us at the Academy yesterday?”
“You mean our solemn league and covenant. Yes.”
“Why did we not make that covenant before? Life is not so long, nor happiness so common, that we can afford to trifle away two years of it. I wish you had told me when I last came here of that old photograph of mine in your album.”
“But this is not a new covenant. It is only an old one mended. We were always good friends until you quarrelled and ran away.”
“That was not my fault, Marian.”
“Then it must have been mine. However, it does not matter now.”
“You are right. Prometheus is unbound now; and his despair is only a memory sanctifying his present happiness. You know why I called on your father this morning?”