“And, believe me, I would not have you keep your promise unless you are sure that you can love me without trying. You must try not to try.”
She gave a laugh, but checked it abruptly before it had run its course. She became graver than ever as she walked along by his side. She was silent, and there was a dimness over her eyes which made their liquid depths seem more profound.
“Pray tell me what there is on your mind, my Betsy,” he said. “Tell me, what is the thought which weighs upon you?”
“Alas!” she cried, “I did not know that you were so good a man.”
“Nor am I,” he said. “Believe me, I am not nearly so good as that; but even if I were, is that any reason why the reflection should weigh you down, or cause your eyes to become tremulous?”
She shook her head, but made no attempt to speak.
He did not urge her to speak. They had reached a green lane just outside the gardens—a graceful acknowledgment of the privileges of Nature on the outskirts of artificiality. There was a warm sigh of wild thyme in the air. A bee hovered drowsily upon the scent. Two yellow butterflies whirled in their dance above a bank of primroses.
He pointed them out to her.
“The butterflies have an aëry dance of their own, and so have the dragon-flies,” he said. “I have watched them by my lake. Did I tell you that there is a tiny lake in my grounds? One can see its gleam from the windows of the house. It is pleasant to stand at the top of the terrace-steps and look across the greensward to the basin of my lake. Very early in the summer morning the deer come to drink there; I have seen the graceful creatures trooping through the dawn, and every now and again a hind would stop for a moment to scratch its neck with a delicate hind-foot, and then bound onward to join its brethren.”