They were not far from home, on the edge of a familiar pine-grove that ran down to the lapping inland sea. She sank on the dry pine-needles; he dropped beside her, and, tearing off his cap, unquestioningly laid his head in her lap.
"Does it ache?" she asked, softly.
"Yes," he murmured. "Rub it."
She passed her hand with a measured motion across his forehead, pushing up the heavy hair. She felt his face for an instant press closer to her knees; volumes of gratitude seemed expressed in the impulsive movement. She continued her stroking with a quiet, sisterly hand, her swelling heart suddenly choking her. She had him back, that she knew beyond a doubt. Broken, disillusioned, his heart seared by the image of another, he was hers, as he lay there thinking of that other. Hers to help, to heal, to make love her as much as she loved him. And a flood of human passion, the sensation she had decided—God forgive her!—disposed of forever, surged in her. Her eyes brimmed over with happy tears. Why should there be any feeling of bitterness mixed in a feeling so sweet? Why should the hurt to one's vanity be remembered in such a situation? Why not be finally glad to give more than one received, offer something whole for something broken, bless beyond all desert? No—no—that other could never have loved him so! Fate had meant well by him in putting her out of reach; this sorrow of his should pass away and be as if it had never been. Chloris felt in herself such inexhaustible wells of tenderness and patience, she knew hers was the good title; she knew she could be sufficient—make Damon forget. Her heart sang a song of praise and victory, while her hand smoothed his forehead with the fancy that it brushed away the image of Cytherea, fatal line by line.
Ineffable fatigue drew her down from high serene thoughts to thoughts nearer earth. She ached; waves of unnatural sensation swept through her, but she would not move. The weight of his dear head was better than ease.
While she took patience till he should be ready to rise and go sensibly home to bed, a whimsical image formed in her brain: Herself, and to one side of her, a little higher, Cytherea, and to the other, a little lower, Chloe—and beyond Chloe, in the descending line, some poor woman, not pretty or winning at all, to whom Chloe must appear a half-divinity; and above Cytherea, in the ascending line, another fairer than she, for, when all was said, there must be in this world women even fairer than the great Cytherea, of whom she, perchance, lying awake in her queenly bed, would think with anguish, confessing herself helpless to struggle. Poor Cytherea, then, in her turn! Chloris framed a sincere wish for her continued happiness, and that in the event of despised love God should grant her to become a philosopher. And her imagination went on feebly, whimsically, weaving. Still another fairer still creature above Cytherea's victress—still another at the other end, to whom the envier of Chloe should be an object of envy—and so on, till the chain seemed to extend from the seraphs down to the last of the most degraded race, and take a slightly humorous aspect. "It pleases the powers to be merry," thought Chloris, and was conscious of no irreverence in the conceit.
"Wake up, Chloris!" came Damon's voice, sounding more as it had used to sound, before he was so grown-up, and had untoward things happen to him in his sentiments.
"I have not been asleep!" she said, sheepishly, "except below my knees."
"I won't contradict you, but when I struck a light you were nodding and smiling away to yourself like a little China mandarin. Have you any idea of the time it is? Well, I won't enlighten you. What a crazy thing we have been doing! Come, dear, let me help you up. I hope to Heaven you haven't taken cold. Hello, can't you walk straight? What a brute I am! Take my arm—"