His mouth under the short ruddy moustache hardened.
"I am going back to find them."
"That's well—go back, Tristram. They may be all that are left any of us at the end. Our dreams are real—reality is nothing. See—!" She laid her hand on her breast with a curious gesture of self-accusation. "I am all your wife would call me—just a mean, soulless fortune-hunter. You've found me out. There is not one fine or noble or high thing in me—and yet your vision of the woman who danced that night, who has played to you the finest music in the world is no illusion, but the truth. Keep it—remember it. Perhaps"—she smiled faintly—"your memory of her may bring Undine to her soul."
He looked away from her.
"I can't help myself——" he said roughly.
"Don't try. Let us keep all the beauty that we can."
She laid her hand on Arabella's long neck and stroked it caressingly. And now something elfish and illusive dawned under her expression of intense earnestness. "Do you remember—you used to go down to the temple when the moon rose and dream you saw me dance among the ruins——"
"I was a romantic boy—half crazed with loneliness——" he broke in with repressed vehemence.
"The moon rises tonight," she said, so gently that he scarcely heard her. Yet something insistent, patient in her forced him to meet her eyes. He saw that they were dry and brilliant, tragically exultant. They betrayed her careless smile, the affectation of demure mockery with which she once more gave him her hand. "Major Tristram, I have a foolish presentiment that we shall meet just once again—and after that no more. Good-bye till then."
He did not answer. She turned lightly away from him. And he rode on down towards the valley.