He nodded, "Yes."
Damaris clapped her hands. "What lovely hypocrite have we among us? What Lady Pure Innocence, wondering with the rest of the world?--and all the while Cleon's latest sonnet hot against her heart! Is she tall, sir, or short?"
"Of your height."
The lady shrugged. "Oh, I like not your half-way people! And her hair--but halt! We know her hair is dark:
'Ah, darkness loved beyond all light!'
Her eyes--"
He bent his head, moving yet nearer to her. "Her eyes--her eyes are wonderful! Where got you your eyes, Dione--Dione?"
Crimsoning deeply, Damaris started up, the racket escaping her clasp, and her hands going out in a gesture of dismay and anger. "Sir,--sir," she stammered, "since you make a mock of me, I will begone. No, sir; let me pass! Ah, ... how unworthy of you!"
Ferne had caught her by the wrists. "No, no! Dear lady, to whom I am wellnigh a stranger--sweetheart with whom I have talked scarce thrice in all my life--my Dione, to whom my heart is as a crystal, to whom I have written all things! I must speak now, now before I go this voyage! Think you it is in me to vex with saucy words, to make a mock of any gentle lady?"
"I know not what to think," she answered, in a strange voice. "I am too dull to understand."