"No—not unless you are," gaily answered John.
She looked down at her ring.
VII
The quiet-coloured end of evening smiled fainter, fainter. The aerial city, its cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, had crumbled into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath of dew-wet roses.
The clock struck eight.
"There—you must go," said Maria Dolores.
"Go? Where to?" asked John, feigning vagueness.
"This is no subject for jest," said she, feigning severity.
"I can't go yet—I can't leave you yet," said he. "Besides, it is an education in æsthetics to watch the moonlight on these marble columns, and the pale shadows of the vine-leaves."