He had raised a deprecating hand. It was trembling. And her face seemed only a blurred shining, for in his eyes were tears. It must be, Florian reflected, because of the wind: but he did not believe this, nor need we.
“Princess, will you entrust to me, such as I am, the life I have repurchased for you? I dare make no large promises, in the teeth of a disastrously tenacious memory. Yet, there is no part in me but worships you, I have no desire in life save toward you. There has never been in all my life any real desire save that which strove toward you.”
“Oh, but, Messire Florian,” the girl replied, “of course I will be your wife if you desire it.”
He raised now both his hands a little toward her. She had not drawn back. He did not know whether this was joy or terror which possessed him: but it possessed him utterly. His heart was shaking in him, with an insane and ruthless pounding. He thought his head kept time to this pounding, and was joggling like the head of a palsied old man. He knew his finger-tips to be visited by tiny and inexplicable vibrations.
“If I could die now—!” was in his mind. “Now, at this instant! And what a thought for me to be having now!”
Instead, he now touched his disenchanted princess. Yet their two bodies seemed not to touch, and not to have moved as flesh that is pulled by muscles. They seemed to have merged, effortlessly and without volition, into one body.
In fine, he kissed her. So was the affair concluded.
9.
Misgivings of a Beginning Saint
