After dinner we sat on the couch by the fire in silent content at being one at last—just realizing to the full the bliss of being together, of really belonging each to each. Just such another evening of flickering firelight playing across Aryenis’s hair and face, across the white slimness of neck and arm, as recalled those evenings of the past—the dragon evenings at Aornos, the ribbon evening in this same hall of ours.
“I want you to say really nice things to me to-night, please, Harilek.”
“What shall I say, sweetheart? Tell you that your frock is pretty, or that you are looking your very nicest?”
“No; not things like that.”
I looked down into Aryenis’s eyes, upturned in the half-light, gleam of white below the luminous wide circle of the iris, and on the soft curves of her parted lips.
“Tell you that I love you, then?”
I felt her arm draw tighter round me.
“Tell you that I love you with every little bit of me? ’cause that’s true, you know. I just worship you, sweetheart.”
Aryenis’s arms were very tight as she strained against me, drawing my lips down to hers, pausing to whisper ere they met:
“And, man of mine, I love you—always—with everything that’s in me.”