For a long while the girl was silent. Presently she spoke, half-hushed, like one in the presence of sanctity. "I am happy. For these three months I have been more happy than I had thought was permissible on earth. And yet, Louis, you tell me that those stars are worlds perhaps like ours,—think of it, my dear, millions and millions of worlds like ours, and on each world perhaps a million of lovers like us! It is true that among them all no woman loves as I do, for that would be impossible. Yet think of it, mon ami, how inconsiderable a thing is the happiness of one man and of one woman in this immensity! Why, we are less than nothing, you and I! Ohé, I am afraid, hideously afraid, Louis,—for we are such little folk and the universe is so big. And always the storms go about it, and its lightnings thrust at us, and the waters of it are clutching at our feet, and its laws are not to be changed—Oh, it is big and cruel, my dear, and we are adrift in it, we who are so little!"
He again put forth his hand toward her. "What a morbid child it is!" said Louis Quillan. "I can assure you I have resided in this same universe just twice as long as you, and I find that upon the whole the establishment is very creditably conducted. There arrives, to be sure, an occasional tornado, or perhaps an earthquake, each with its incidental inconveniences. On the other hand, there is every evening a lavishly arranged sunset, like gratis fireworks, and each morning (I am credibly informed) a sunrise of which poets and energetic people are pleased to speak highly; while every year spring comes in, like a cosmical upholsterer, and refurnishes the entire place, and makes us glad to live. Nay, I protest to you, this is an excellent world, my Nelchen! and likewise I protest to you that in its history there was never a luckier nor a happier man than I."
Nelchen considered. "Well," she generously conceded; "perhaps, after all, the stars are more like diamonds."
Louis Quillan chuckled. "And since when were you a connoisseur of diamonds, my dear?"
"Of course I have never actually seen any. I would like to, though—yes, Louis, what I would really like would be to have a bushelful or so of diamonds, and to marry a duke—only the duke would have to be you, of course,—and to go to Court, and to have all the fine ladies very jealous of me, and for them to be very much in love with you, and for you not to care a sou for them, of course, and for us both to see the King." Nelchen paused, quite out of breath after this ambitious career in the imaginative.
"To see the King, indeed!" scoffed little Louis Quillan. "Why, we would see only a very disreputable pockmarked wornout lecher if we did."
"Still," she pointed out, "I would like to see a king. Simply because I never have done so before, you conceive."
"At times, my Nelchen, you are effeminate. Eve ate the apple for that identical reason. Yet what you say is odd, because—do you know?—I once had a friend who was by way of being a sort of king."
Nelchen gave a squeal of delight. "And you never told me about him! I loathe you."
Louis Quillan did what seemed advisable. "—and, furthermore, your loathsomeness is no excuse for rumpling my hair," said Nelchen, by and by.