But it is of life and love and joy, and not death or parting, that they are thinking now.
He draws her arm within his as if she had belonged to him for years, or rather as if he wanted to assure himself that she belonged to him, and they pace slowly along the meadow in the shadow of the trees; her hat swings on her hand, her eyes lift, heavy with love, to his face, as he bends down to her his own, eloquent with the devotion and adoration which fill his heart to overflowing. And yet through all the storm of passion that tosses in his breast, he has sense enough to notice how beautiful she is, how lightly and gracefully she walks by his side, how delicious is the pose of the slender neck, the half averted face. This flower that he has found and plucked to wear in his breast is no common weed, but a rare blossom of which an emperor might be proud.
And she—well, she scarcely realizes yet what this is that has happened to her; she only knows that a supreme happiness, a novel joy, so intense as to be almost pain, is thrilling through her; that at one moment she feels inclined to cry and the next to laugh. He is hers! She is to be his wife!—his wife! Oh, what a singular dream! Shall she wake soon? Wake to find that he has gone, and that all that is now happening is but a phantasy, a vision that will fade and leave her desolate.
She starts presently and looks up at him.
"Papa! He—will miss me—wonder where I have gone," she says. "How long have we been here?" and she looks round as if she expected to see the shades of night falling.
He laughs softly, the laugh of a man so completely happy that time has ceased to be of consequence.
"I don't know. What does it matter? Your father will know you are all right. He will think you have gone to the beach, that you are playing with the children—how fond you are of children, dearest."
"Yes, yes," she murmurs.
"I never saw any one go on with them as you do. No wonder they love you; but I suppose everything and every one does. By the way——." He stops, and a faint shadow falls on his face. "I suppose there have been ever so many fellows who've been in love with you?"
She makes a little gesture of indifference, as if the thought was too trivial to be entertained or spoken of. What does it matter who loved her, now?