Mait.—That reflected your whole being; nay, revealed from its mysterious depths, new consciousness, that yet seemed like a faint memory, the traces of some old and pleasant dream?
Andre. Methinks the heavenly revelation itself doth that.
Mait. Such an eye I saw then shining on me. A clump of stately pines grew on the sloping road-side, and, looking into its dark embrasure, I beheld a group of merry children around a spring that gurgled out of the hillside there, and among them, there sat a young girl clad in white, her hat on the bank beside her, tying a wreath of wild flowers. That was all—that was all, Andre.
Andre. Well, she was beautiful, I suppose? Nay, if it was the damsel I met just now I need not ask.
Mait. Beautiful? Ay, they called her so. Beauty I had seen before; but from that hour the sun shone with another light, and the very dust and stones of this dull earth were precious to me. Beautiful? Nay, it was she. I knew her in an instant, the spirit of my being; she whose existence made the lovely whole, of which mine alone had been the worthless and despised fragment. There are a thousand women on the earth the artist might call as lovely,—show me another that I can worship.
Andre. Worship! This is Captain Everard Maitland. If I should shut my eyes now—
Mait. Well, go on; but I tell you, ne'ertheless, there have been times, even in this very spot,—we often wandered here when the day was dying as it is now,—here in her soft, breathing loveliness, she has stood beside me, when I have,—worshipped?—nay, feared her, in her holy beauty, as we two should an angel who should come through that glade to us now.
Andre. True it is, something of the Divinity there is in beauty, that, in its intenser forms, repels with all its winningness, until the lowliness of love looks through it. Well—you worshipped her.
Mait. Nay, you have told the rest. I would have worshipped; but one day there came a look from those beautiful eyes, when I met them suddenly, with a gaze that sought the mystery of their beauty,—a single look, and in an instant the drooping lash had buried it forever; but I knew, ere it fell, that the world of her young being was all mine already. Another life had been forever added unto mine; a whole creation; yet, like Eden's fairest, it but made another perfect; a new and purer self; and in it grew the heaven, and the fairy-land of my old dreams, lovelier than ever. You have loved yourself, Andre, else I should weary you.
Andre. Not a bit the more do I understand you though. You talk most lover-like; that's very clear, yet I must say I never saw the part worse played. Why, here's your ladye-love, this self-same idol of whom you rave, at this moment perchance, breathing within these woods,—years too—two mortal years it must be, since you have seen her face; and yet—you stand here yet, with folded arms;—a goodly lover, on my word!