"What were you thinking of?"
"Why—you—in a way, I suppose. If I was thinking at all. I was merely filled with a vast content. God! I have found more than I ever dreamed any man could imagine he wanted. Vastly more than any man's deserts. It is an astonishing thing for a man to be able to say."
Mary sat up suddenly. "Be careful. A little superstition is a good thing to keep in one's bag of precautions."
"I feel good enough to disdain it. Of course I may be struck by lightning tomorrow, or the car may turn turtle when we go down to be married, but I refuse to contemplate anything of the sort. I feel as arrogant as that moon up there, who may have all the gods inside him, and do not mind proclaiming aloud that earth is heaven."
"Well—it is." She was not superstitious herself, but she was suddenly invaded by a sinister inexplicable fear, and smiled the more brightly to conceal it. But she lowered her eyelids and glanced hastily about her, wondering if an enemy could be hiding in those dark woods. She was not conscious of possessing enemies venomous enough to assassinate her, but she knew little of Clavering's life after all, and he was the sort of man who must inspire hate as well as love … danger assuredly was lurking somewhere … it seemed to wash against her brain, carrying its message.… But there were no wild beasts in the Adirondacks, nor even reptiles.… Nor a sound. The owl had given up his attempt to entice his lady out for a rendezvous and the frogs had paused for breath. There was not the faintest rustle in the forest except those eternally whispering leaves and the faint surging tide in the tree-tops. That ugly invading fear was still in her eyes as she met his.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "You look frightened."
"I am a little—I have a curious feeling of uneasiness—as if something were going to happen."
"'Out of the depths of the hollow gloom,
On her soul's bare sands she heard it boom,
The measured tide of the sea of doom,'"
he quoted lightly. "I fancy when one is too happy, the jealous gods run the quicksilver of our little spiritual barometers down for a moment, merely to remind us that we are mortals after all."
The shadow on her face lifted, and she smiled into his ardent eyes.