“I believe you love me a little.”
She baffled his challenge by her immediate frankness. The powers of life were not to be denied in shyness by a child who might have been a nymph of Artemis.
“I think I might love you a great deal. I will love you with all my heart if you know how to win me. I will surrender my soul to my true lord and lover when he comes.”
Her eyes softened as she made her sweet confession, and his cheeks burned to hear her. But her purity only tempted him without touching him. Again he made to clasp her in his arms.
“He has come. Kiss me, Perpetua!” he cried, exultingly; but she flitted from his reach as subtly as a shadow shifting with the sun, and there was command in her voice as she motioned to him to hold aloof.
“Wait! I am not to be won in a whirlwind. Great love is gentle love, hunter.”
He could have cursed at her for avoiding him, yet the avoidance spurred him to succeed, and his words were tender as caresses.
“When I clasp you in my arms you will forget to be so wise.”
The fair girl knitted her brows in a frown at his overboldness. For his life the King could not tell why he refrained from again attempting to embrace her—and yet he did refrain, standing and listening while she reproved him, and to his ears there seemed to be something of irony and something of mirth in her smooth, cool tones.