After a moment, "I never knew—that!" said Arlee in slow wonder.
"Well, you know now," returned Falconer with a sense of grim justice to the man he had belittled.
In the silence the girl moved toward the steps. He made a gesture to stay her.
"You're not going—yet?"
"Yet?" she echoed, faintly mocking. "It's hours."
"But—but we can never see this again," he argued, weakly, parrying with himself.
"We won't—forget it."
The words held a too-keen prophecy for him. He looked at her in heart-beating uncertainty, and it seemed to him that all his future was waiting on that moment. Should he speak? Should he utter that which had been so near utterance when her astounding revelation had stopped him?... After all, he knew nothing of her—but that she was lovely and wilful and enchanting—with a capacity for risk—and a dire disregard of consequences.... She was volatile, unstable, bewildering—so he thought stiffeningly as he looked at her, but he looked too long.
She was the very spirit of loveliness in the silver moon, her hair a crown of light, her eyes deep with shadowy wistfulness, her lips half sad, half tender.... He felt the blood burn hot in his face, and took a quick step to bar the way.
"You must wait to hear what I was saying," he said, with a ring of new command.