"I don't know—and I don't like to express any opinion about it,"— he answered, with careful gentleness—"But there is danger—and—if the worst should happen—-"
"It won't happen! It shan't happen!" cried Cicely passionately.
"Dear little singing Goblin, I wish you could control fate!" And, taking her hand, he patted it affectionately. "Everything would be all right for everybody if you could make it so, I'm sure!—even for me! Wouldn't it?"
Cicely blushed suddenly.
"I don't know,"—she said—"I never think about you!"
He smiled.
"Don't you? Well,—perhaps some day you will! When you are a great prima donna, you will read the poems and verses I shall write about you in all the newspapers and magazines, and you will say as you take kings' and emperors' diamonds out of your hair: 'Who is this fellow? Ah yes! I remember him! He was a chum of mine down in the little village of St. Rest. I called him Mooncalf, and he called me Goblin. And—he was very fond of me!'"
She laughed a little, and drew away her hand from his.
"Don't talk nonsense!" she said—"Think of Maryllia—and of Mr.
Walden!"
"I do think of them,—I think of them all the time!" declared Julian earnestly—"And that is why I am so uneasy. For—if the worst should happen, it will break Walden's heart."