"Really, really, now? Am I really necessary to your happiness?"
"You are my happiness. I come here, or I go to the Grove, and find you, and I am happy. When I go away, I leave happiness behind me, except the reflected light of memory; except the dreams in which your image floats about me, in which I hear your voice, the sweet voice that is kinder in my dreams than it ever is in my waking hours."
"Surely I am never unkind."
"No; but in my dreams you are more than kind—you are my own and my love. You are what I hope you will be soon, Suzette—soon! Life's morning is so short. Let us spend it together."
They were in the temple at the end of the cypress walk, and in that semi-sacred solitude his arm had stolen round her waist, his lips were seeking hers, gently, yet with a force which it needed all her strength to oppose.
"No; no; you must not. I can promise nothing yet. I have had no time to think."
"No time! Oh, Suzette, you must have known for the last six weeks that I adore you."
"I am not vain enough to imagine myself adored. I think I knew that you liked me—almost from the first——"
"Liked and admired you from the very first," interrupted Allan.
"My aunt said things—hinted and laughed, and was altogether absurd; but one's kinsfolk are so vain."