And I knew instantaneously that all the restraint and resolutions had been swept aside—that after all I was as weak and weaker than the boy Randolph. For I had spoken without the iota of a wish to resist my desires!
Slowly, very slowly, she drew closer to me so that her sweet breath of violets was warm and fragrant on my cheek. My head swam.
"Ever since I came to you;" she breathed ever so softly, "ever since I was fifteen you have filled my thoughts, my heart, my life. I have—loved you always." The blood roared in my ears. I was filled with madness. But too long had I doubted happiness to receive it with open arms. I had made a stranger of it as does a miser by keeping his wealth hidden away.
"Think what you are saying, Alicia," I took her face convulsively in both my hands. "I have loved you beyond anything on earth, beyond life itself. I have dreamed of you, dwelt upon you until I am mad. Do you really mean you can love me—as a man? After all those foolish years of hiding and suffering? Is that what you mean, or is it just—Uncle Ranny?"
"Yes—that is what I mean, my Prince of the fairy tale," she whispered, hiding her face against mine—"if you'll take me!"
My senses reeled and swooned. She was tightly gripped in my arms. I was straining her to my heart. The months, the years of love hunger charged through my veins and sinews like an inexorable force, remorseless, irresistible.
The margin of the garden was a few yards away but it might have been an infinity. The scant trees, countable upon the fingers of one hand, might have been a forest of congregated giants with their vast secret life brooding and sheltering us. Infinity and our small intense reality were merged and met. I felt coextensive with the vast majestic universe. I babbled broken words against her lips—I don't know what I babbled. For the vast majestic universe was locked in the circle of my arms.
"Let us go in, my darling," I murmured at last. "The dew is heavy and you must get your rest. I shall not attempt to sleep what remains of this night of nights."
"Nor I," replied Alicia dreamily. "I want to meet the dawn with you this morning. Isn't it marvelous, dearest, that in spite of everything, in spite of that poor boy in there," she added with a note of pathos, "we two can be so wildly happy?"
"Yes, my child, marvelous and awe-inspiring. But happiness is the first decree—the foremost law."