"O Percivale!"
I must make a conversation of it to tell it at all; but what I really did say I know no more than the man in the moon.
"The carpet was the only expensive thing. That must be as thick as I could get it; for the floor is of stone, and must not come near your pretty feet. Guess what the place was before."
"I should say, the flower of a prickly-pear cactus, full of sunlight from behind, which a fairy took the fancy to swell into a room."
"It was a shed, in which the sculptor who occupied the place before me used to keep his wet clay and blocks of marble."
"Seeing is hardly believing," I said. "Is it to be my room? I know you mean it for my room, where I can ask you to come when I please, and where I can hide when any one comes you don't want me to see."
"That is just what I meant it for, my Ethelwyn,—and to let you know what I would do for you if I could."
"I hate the place, Percivale," I said. "What right has it to come poking in between you and me, telling me what I know and have known—for, well, I won't say how long—far better than even you can tell me?"
He looked a little troubled.
"Ah, my dear!" I said, "let my foolish words breathe and die."