'Happy, Elise?'
'So happy,' she whispered, 'that I am afraid some day I shall find it isn't true.'
He laughed gently, and for a few moments neither spoke, held by the wonderful intimacy of the spirit that does not need words for understanding.
'Austin dear,' she said at length, 'before you came out I was counting the stars—and playing with dreams. Don't think me silly, will you? But I was planning, if we have a son, what I should like to call him.'
'I think I know,' he said, pressing his lips against her hair. 'Dick?'
'And Gerard for his second name. I should want him to be strong and true like Gerard—but he must have Dick's eyes and Dick's smile. But, then, I want so much for this dream-boy of ours—for, most of all, he must be like my husband.'
With a sudden shyness she hid her face against his breast, and he ran his hand caressingly over her arm, which was like cool velvet to the touch.
The glimmering stars grew stronger, and a breeze from the sea crept murmuringly over the spring-scented fields.
'There are times,' he said, 'when I long for the power to reach out for the great truths that lie hidden in space and in the silence of a night like this—to put them in such simple language that every one could read and understand. If I could only translate the wonder of you and the spirit of the sea into words.'
She looked up into his face, and something of the mystic blue of the skies lay in the depths of her eyes.