Shaking like a wind-blown leaf, “Que désirez-vous de moi?” she gasped.
His voice, too, was trembling. “That you should love me a little, for pity’s sake, ... and quite forget to fear!”
His voice seemed to Gabrielle godlike.
“See, then ... I fear nothing.... I should as soon think of fearing the air we breathe!” she said, adoring her slender young demigod out of the hedge. Then suddenly she raised her hand and laid it caressingly on his cheek; her trembling fingers felt like flowers trailed across his face.
He laughed. There was an infectious sweetness and merriment in his laughter. Then they laughed together, softly,—first love and joy are silent things.
“You are the god of love,” she said, with infinite simplicity. “Else, how could you fly over the hedge?”
Her flute-like voice was like the music of a half-awakened song, and exquisitely moving; her words trailed slowly like speech asleep.
Again he laughed. “The god of love? Bien! Then what shall I have that is godlike?”
“What you will,” she said. “You may ask.” For the innocent are trustful as doves, helpless as the least creatures, weak as the small birds among the little branches.
He drew a quick breath. “Most of all things on earth I would have a kiss from your mouth. Shall I have it?”