It was this charm of swift and subtle sympathy which made the girl seem sometimes like the embodied spirit of all that was most high and pure in his own wayward but aspiring nature. And this the spell that drew him to her now, glad to sun himself like the butterfly in the light of eyes so clear and candid, that he could read therein the emotions of a maiden heart just opening to its first, half-conscious love.
Springing up the steps, he said with the caressing air as native to him as his grace of manner. “Sit here and weave a pretty garland for your hair, while I thank you for making my poor verses beautiful. Where did you find the air that fits those words so well?”
“It came itself; as the song did, I think,” she answered simply, as she obeyed him, and began to braid the long brown stems, shaping a chaplet fit for Undine.
“Ah! you will never guess how that came!” he said, sitting at her feet to watch the small fingers at their pretty work. But though his eyes rested there, they grew absent; and he seemed to fall into a reverie not wholly pleasant, for he knit his brows as if the newly won laurel wreath sat uneasily upon a head which seemed made to wear it.
Gladys watched him in reverential silence till he became conscious of her presence again, and gave her leave to speak, with a smile which had in it something of the condescension of an idol towards its devoutest worshipper.
“Were you making poetry, then?” she asked, with the frank curiosity of a child.
“No, I was wondering where I should be now if I had never made any;” and he looked at the summer paradise around him with an involuntary shiver, as if a chill wind had blown upon him.
“Think rather what you will write next. It is so lovely I want more, although I do not understand all this,” touching the book upon her knee with a regretful sigh.
“Neither do I; much of it is poor stuff, Gladys. Do not puzzle your sweet wits over it.”
“That is because you are so modest. People say true genius is always humble.”