So the girl's voice, flowing smoothly like the Thames, which carried the Fair Maiden of Astolat down to Westminster, took Peter from Oxford still further away—into the ocean of self-communion. But a new inflection in Barbara's voice roused him. He heard her read the answer to the king, when he said that he loved not to be constrained to love.
"That is true," said King Arthur and many knights, "love is free in himself and never will be bound...."
The girl looked up from her book, and met the eyes of Peter. Her hand dropped to her side, and there was silence. They knew each the mind of the other.
The revelation came suddenly. It seemed as though an aggrieved fate had got weary of seeing two honest hearts striving to hide their real feelings, and had pulled the veil aside.
They gazed across the bare floor, their thoughts leaping to mingle, and their bodies stiff like images of wood.
At last Peter made a movement.
"Barbara," he said, "you asked me if the music I played was a song. I made it out of my own thoughts. They were my thoughts about you."
A wonderful light crossed the woman's face. She knew now what it was that appealed to her in the melody. She knew that he loved her as she loved him.
She was dazzled for the moment, as by the rising of a great sun; about her voices seemed to sing; her heart was filled with an inrush of the joy and beauty of life. But he was filled with dismay, and yet a strong temptation to satisfy his passion by a touch of their hands and lips. There was nothing but the bare floor to keep them apart; no hand to strike down the arms, which they might have stretched out to each other; no one to forbid them the fervent expression of their love. Was there nothing? Their whole life lay between, a true friendship, actions which had always been honest. These stood by them in their need.
Then Barbara laid down the book, and with a brief good-night went out into the darkness and the sighing of the forest.