"Oh, good-bye," she murmured, and she held out her hands toward the wooded bank. "Good-bye. Oh, good-bye, Isola Bella. I shall always love you, and every blade of grass, and every daisy, and every swallow."
Tears veiled the shadowy woods. She dashed them away, and resisted the sob that rose in her throat. The yacht moved swiftly out into the waves of the summer sea. It was now only the end of the wooded bluff which she could perceive in the moonlight. She leaned back again, and, covering her eyes, relaxed, holding her quivering lip between her teeth.
A neighboring movement made her look up, expecting her father.
Philip Barrison stood there.
She caught her breath. "It is impossible!" she gasped.
"Yes, it is." He took her outstretched hands and sank down beside her. "It is a midsummer night's dream; but I couldn't—I tried, Diana, but I couldn't resist. Your father asked me—said I might come—even at the last minute." At each pause Philip kissed the hands he was holding. "Are you—that is the one vital question—are you glad I came, my goddess?"
The look she gave him in the moonlight made him take her quickly in his arms, and she sank into them with the certainty of the bird that finds its nest.
"I don't know how I dared this, Diana,—dared the future, I mean. How can I be the right one to win the prize of the whole world?"
"Because you are the only man in the whole world for me, and you felt it, and I felt it. Oh, Philip, I won't be so selfish as in the way I have talked to you. I am never going to grudge that others should admire you."