"I was always sorry for him," said Theodora; "and oh, how I would like to go to Sicily and see Ætna and his fiery breath coming forth, and to know when the island quakes it is the poor giant turning his weary side!"
To go to Sicily—and with her! The picture conjured up in Hector's imagination made him thrill again.
Then he told her about it all, he charmed her fancy and excited her imagination, and by the time they came to their goal the feeling of jar had departed, and the dangerous sense of attraction—of nearness—had returned.
It was nearly seven o'clock, and here among the trees all was in a soft gloom of evening light.
"Is not this still and far away?" he said, as they sat on an old stone bench. "I often stay the whole morning here when I spend a week at Versailles."
"How peaceful and beautiful! Oh, I would like a week here, too!" and Theodora sighed.
"You must not sigh, beautiful princess," he implored, "on this our happy day."
The slender lines of her figure seemed all drooping. She reminded him more than ever of the fragment of Psyche in the Naples Museum.
"No, I must not sigh," she said. "But it seems suddenly to have grown sad—the air—what does it mean? Tell me, you who know so many things?" There was a pathos in her voice like a child in distress.
It communicated itself to him, it touched some chords in his nature hitherto silent. His whole being rushed out to her in tenderness.