"I would die for you," he replied, simply; "quite content, if you smiled on me as I died."
"Do you mean it, without any romance or nonsense? Seriously, would you, to serve me?"
"Yes: and count all loss as gain."
"Then you shall be my knight, my friend. I am not a queen. I have no sword to lay on your shoulder, but I place my hand in yours, and I accept your loyal service."
She laid her white hand in his, and the touch of those slender fingers thrilled him as nothing had ever done before.
"I am your sovereign liege," she said, with a smile. "If I come to you in distress you are sworn, remember, to help me. If I require your service, it is mine."
"Yes," he said; "at all times and at all hours."
"I shall go through life the more happily for knowing that I have so true and chivalrous a defender," she replied.
And they sat in the flower-wreathed balcony, watching the sun set over the river, and the simple, dreaming boy believed himself in Paradise.
It seemed to him that the spell was broken when the other guests came out and joined them. As he could no longer talk to Lady Amelie, he was content to stand by himself and think over his own happiness. To him it was like a beautiful page from some old romance, that this lovely lady should have smiled upon him, and have laid her gracious hand upon him, calling him her knight. How insufferable the empty talk of the men around him seemed! Ah, if they knew how he was sworn to do the lady's service!