"How considerate you are!" she scornfully responded, but her hand remained in his keeping.
There were no problems now. Down through the soft dusk of the summer night they strolled, rapturously listening to the sounds that were hardly more than silences, feeling the touch of each other's garments, experiencing the magic thrill which leaps from maid to man and man to maid in times like these.
"How big you are!" exclaimed the girl. "I didn't realize how much you overtopped me. I am considered tall."
"And so you are—and divinely fair."
"How banal! Couldn't you think of a newer one?"
"It was as much as ever I remembered, that. I'm not a giant in poetry. I'm a dub at any fine job."
Of this quality was their talk. To those of us who are old and dim-eyed, it seems of no account, perhaps, but to those who can remember similar walks and talks it is of higher worth than the lectures in the Sorbonne. Learning is a very chill abstraction on such a night to such a pair. Would we not all go back again to this sweet land of love and longing—if we could?
Victor did not deliberately plan to draw Leonora closer to his side, and the proud girl did not intend to permit him to do so; but somehow it happened that his arm stole round her waist as they walked the shadowy places of the drive, and their laggard feet were wholly out of rhythm to their leaping pulses.
The proof of Victor's naturally dependable character lay in the fact that he presumed no further. He was content with the occasional touch of her rounded hip to his, the caressing touch of her skirt as it swung about his ankle. To have attempted a kiss would have broken the spell, would have alarmed and repelled her. He honored her, loved her, but he was still in awe of her proud glance and the imperious carriage of her head. He preferred to think she suffered rather than invited the clasp of his arm.
She, on her part, was astonished and a little scared by her own complaisant weakness, and as they came out into the lighter part of the walk she disengaged herself with a self-derisive remark, and asked, "Do you always take such good care of the arms of your girl friends?"