“It’s unkind to laugh at me,” returned the girl, with surprising heat. “You know I have no thought of fame.”
“Rosalie, Rosalie!” he exclaimed and seized her hand protectingly. “I’m not laughing at you. I believe you could have fame if you wish and work; but somehow I don’t want the people to have a right to gaze at you, and listen, and applaud.”
A strange film came over her eyes as she still looked at him. It was as if she withdrew herself as she took her hand away.
“I suppose,” she said, “that people who have always had their own way are subject to such fancies.”
“Betsy said that to you!” he exclaimed, acutely.
She shook her head but did not speak.
“Betsy knows nothing of our compact.” He leaned toward her, and she shrank, but kept her golden head proudly lifted. “Betsy knows nothing of the moment when we stood above the eagles and knew what in life was—
“‘the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.’
Why do I call you Rosalie? Because it means you. It is one of the ‘sweets’ that came to me then—”