Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself.”
A girl in Belmont put it so, in a dream a man dreamed beneath an English mulberry tree. And girls have said it countless times, each girl after her own sweet fashion, and men have accepted it, some in manhood splendidly, some in dastardy cravenly. Basil accepted it in shame, drinking the bitter cup of his selfish brewing.
“But,” he said, bending over her tenderly as she clung to him, “you are as beautiful as the cherry blossom itself, Nang Ping.”
She bent back and looked up searchingly into his face, and then she broke away and danced a little from him, as if too quick with her own joy to stand longer still. “And as happy as heaven!” she cried. “Ah! and when they see me, will they not guess?”
“Oh! but you mustn’t let them; you must not,” his answer came quickly.
She shook her head slowly. “But I am all happiness that I cannot hide.” Then a new thought caught and frightened her, and she turned back to him anxiously. “If they guessed, would they take you from me?”
“Why, yes,” he told her quickly, snatching at her idea; “they might—yes—yes—certainly they would.”