A new tenderness swept over her. She would have liked to reach up her hand and smooth away the little puzzled frown between his brows. She almost dared to do it. Then he turned.
"You're right," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It is n't real. See, it's fading now."
The pink clouds were turning a dull gray.
"Perhaps it's better it should," she suggested. "If it stayed like that all the time, we'd get so used to it we would n't see it."
He took out his watch.
"I ordered supper to be ready in a half hour," he said. "We'd better get back."
She fell in step by his side—by the side of her fairy prince. For, oddly enough, he had not begun to fade as the sunset faded. The twilight was deepening into the hushed night—a wonderful night that was like beautiful music heard at a distance. It left her scarcely conscious of moving. In the sky the stars were becoming clearer; in the houses, candles were beginning to twinkle. It was difficult to tell which were which—as if the sky and the earth were one.
There was no abrupt change even when they came into the inn, where near the open window a table had been set and two candles were burning.
"Oh," she exclaimed again, "here is another bit of fairy world."
He laughed abruptly.