Venus Victrix—as is always the case.
If she had said she hated him, and yet looked as beautiful as she does, he would probably have adored her all the same, but now the clinging clasp, the loving grey eyes, the tremulous lips, and, above all, the abandon that love lends her, conquers completely, and the big strong man is the veriest baby, malleable as wax, in the circle of these dimpled arms and within earshot of the throb of his love’s true heart.
“My own, my sweet!” he cries, stooping and kissing her from brow to chin. “I know you will come when I bid you, my Zai!”
“When you bid me, Carl,” she says, her head against his shoulder, her eyes fixed on his face.
Silence for a minute or two. The fresh night air sweeps over them, the leaves rustle gently overhead, and they are as virtually alone as Adam and Eve in Eden. Suddenly the strains of a band fall faintly on the quiet square, and they both start from dreamland into reality.
She listens a moment.
“Estudiantina! It’s the eighteenth dance, Carl,” she says, nervously, for Zai has a much more wholesome fear of her august mother than her sisters have. “How long we have been absent!”
He glances at his watch.
“Half-past one o’clock!—nearly one hour and a-half. Who would believe it, little one? Nearly an hour and a half, that has flown like this because you and I are alone together. Just so our lives will pass like a delicious dream, my Zai. I don’t think any two people in this world ever loved one another as we do. The very first time I saw you—do you remember? It was at Lady Derringham’s. I have been devoted to fat, fussy Lady Derringham ever since! I knew it was all over with me. No more flirtations, no more bachelor ways for me. I knew it was my wife standing before me, in a sweet little blue dress, with a bunch as big as herself of lilies of the valley in her bosom. Zai, did you feel any instinct of the kind?”
“Yes,” she whispers, nestling into his arms and kissing his coat-sleeve surreptitiously.