"Not a soul!" he assured her.
"Then ... if you'll turn your head a moment ... and are sure none can spy ... and will be vastly careful ... and are quite, quite sure you can manage——"
It was managed almost as she spoke, he with an assured adroitness, she with such gracious ease that, in the same moment they were walking side by side over the smooth turf, as calm and unruffled as any two people ever were or will be. "'Tis a dear orchard, this!" she sighed, stopping to pat the rough bark of a huge, gnarled apple-tree.
"'Twas here I first saw you," said he.
"Stealing your fruit!" she nodded.
"It seems long ago."
"And yet 'tis but a few short weeks."
Slowly they went on together, past lily-pool asleep in marble basin, through green boskages amid whose leafy shade marble dryads shyly peeped and fauns and satyrs sported; beneath the vast spread of mighty trees across smooth, grassy levels, by shady walks and so at last to the blazing glory of the rose-garden. Here my lady paused with an exclamation of delight.
"Indeed, indeed, 'tis lovely—lovelier than I had dreamed! Are you not proud of it?"
"Yes," he answered, "more especially since I never owned a foot of land till of late—or a roof to shelter me, for that matter."