“Well they might be,” said Tacita. “But of the marriage, tell me. What have we to do? I am half afraid.”
“First, then,” said Dylar, “On Saturday you lead the girls to the Basilica for the Blessing, as Iona used to do, Ion leading the boys. On Sunday you do only as the others. On Monday morning a company of matrons go for you and take you to the Basilica for the lilies. All are in white and all wear veils of white, you like the rest. But you alone have a lily on your breast. All come out. You, surrounded still by your guard of matrons, remain in the court just outside the portal, at the right, and I, with the Council, at the left. All the others are below, outside the green. Professor Pearlstein, as president of the council, then asks in a loud voice if any one can show reason why I should not demand your hand in marriage. He waits a moment, then says: ‘Speak now, or forever after hold your peace.’ No sound is heard. I forbid the wind to breathe, the birds to sing!”
“And then?” said Tacita, smiling, as he stopped and flashed the words out fierily.
His eyes softened on her blushing face, and they stood opposite each other under the lacelike branches of an almond-tree where minute points thick upon all the boughs betrayed the imminent blossom-drift.
“And then,” said Dylar, “I shall come forward into the path where the lamps of the sanctuary shine out through the portal, and I shall say: ‘If Tacita Mora consents willingly to promise herself to me this day as my betrothed wife, in the presence of God and of these my people, let her come forth alone and lay her hand in mine.’”
He pronounced the words with seriousness and emphasis. His tones thrilled her heart.
“And then?” she said, almost in a whisper.
He smiled faintly, but with an infinite tenderness. “And then, my Lady, if even at so late a moment you doubt, or fear, you need not answer.”
“How could I doubt, or fear!” she exclaimed, and turned homeward.
They walked almost in silence, side by side, till they reached the Arcade, where they were to separate till they should meet in the scene which he had just been describing. And there they said farewell with but a moment’s lingering.