'Old days,' said Plantagenet, 'are like the old fountain at Cadurcis, dearer to me than all this modern splendour.'
'The old fountain at Cadurcis,' said Venetia, musingly, and gazing on the water with an abstracted air, 'I loved it well!'
'Venetia,' said her companion, in a tone of extreme tenderness, yet not untouched with melancholy, 'dear Venetia, let us return, and return together, to that old fountain and those old days!'
Venetia shook her head. 'Ah, Plantagenet!' she exclaimed in a mournful voice, 'we must not speak of these things.'
'Why not, Venetia?' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, eagerly. 'Why should we be estranged from each other? I love you; I love only you; never have I loved another. And you, have you forgotten all our youthful affection? You cannot, Venetia. Our childhood can never be a blank.'
'I told you, when first we met, my heart was unchanged,' said Venetia.
'Remember the vows I made to you when last at Cherbury,' said Cadurcis. 'Years have flown on, Venetia; but they find me urging the same. At any rate, now I know myself; at any rate, I am not now an obscure boy; yet what is manhood, and what is fame, without the charm of my infancy and my youth! Yes, Venetia! you must, you will he mine?'
'Plantagenet,' she replied, in a solemn tone, 'yours I never can be.'
'You do not, then, love me?' said Cadurcis reproachfully, and in a voice of great feeling.
'It is impossible for you to be loved more than I love you,' said
Venetia.