"You are tired," he said, in quick contrition, turning my face up to the moonlight. "Shall we go back into the house? I'm a brute to treat you this way!"
We passed in through the long window and walked over to the far corner, where the big leather chair is. I sat down, lost in its ample depths. Then he stood up in front of me and looked down with the calmly contented expression of one who is greatly pleased over a new possession.
"You beautiful little young thing," he said again.
"Young?" I felt so secure, so happy, when discussing the question of age with him now.
"That is all I'm afraid of! You may grow tired of me."
"You are afraid of nothing, Cœur de Lion," I answered with an adoring look that brought on another avalanche of caresses. "I have always called you that."
"Always? Since when?"
"Since that day at the gates of the cemetery."
"Ah! And I have never ceased for an hour to think of you since that day—and to wonder how I could make you love me."
"When all the time you were the man of my dreams. Your face told me that when I first saw you—cold as steel to all the world, yet strong as steel for me."