XXIII
"Dear Lucia, will you hear me a moment? I have something to tell you and would like to have it off my mind before we go to bed."
We had just come home from a court banquet and in our gala dress stood looking over the letters which had arrived that night. Lucia looked up interestedly.
"Come to my room with me then," she said, and then regarding me: "It is surely something good, isn't it? I haven't seen you in such good spirits for a long time."
I followed her silently. When we were seated quietly I realized what a vast abyss yawned between our two worlds and what a foolish undertaking was the endeavor to bridge it. I spoke slowly -
"Yes, it is something good, something very good. But I don't know whether I shall succeed in convincing you of that."
Lucia harkened attentively, and again and again I paused a moment, so as to proceed with careful precision in my endeavors to bring about an understanding.
"So you have noticed that I am in better spirits now, or rather that I am happier than I was. It is so and it proves to you that something good has happened. I was not happy because there was something lacking in my life, something that I can with difficulty explain to you. And now I have found it, and it opens up for me a glorious prospect of peace and rest, of the highest content that any human being can expect. A vast sea, a calm ocean of peace and joy.?"
Lucia waited and listened intently.
"Let me begin by saying that I am profoundly grateful to you for your faithful love, your care for me, for our children, our home. And also this - that my affection from the day of our marriage until to-day has never weakened, but constantly grown deeper. Will you believe me when I tell you this?"