"I know."
"You felt it so, too?"
"Yes. That's the reason why—you won't ever laugh at me, will you?—I wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn't wait another twenty-four hours."
"My dar-rling!"
They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms.
"Will you let me kiss you?"
She lifted her face trustfully to his, and Gray Eagle watched them gravely over the gate.
"I wees' I could make you know what you are to me, my pr-rincess, what it means that you give yourself to me. It is not merely that I love you, my dar-rling, with all the strength that has been gathering in me while the years were adding themselves to my age. And it is not only that I think you are per-rfect, so lovely in the char-racter, and so clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart's joy, into a world of force and possibility, and you are the queen of the world, most pr-recious."
She laid her bright head against his breast.
"Will you not say something to me, heart's dear-rest?"