She smiled with something like mischief. "Are you still certain that you know all about it and I nothing?"
"All about what, in the name of all the elves?"
"About falling in love."
"I know nothing at all about it, except as a man who has tumbled down a precipice knows that he is down."
"Well, I rather think that I am better informed. Shall I try to tell you about it? Quite a long story. I must be careful not to 'prattle.' Ah, Osbert, don't look so! You must let me tease."
"Every time you stab me in the back like that you will have to pay for it in kisses."
"If that's so, I must be careful. But let me begin at the beginning. That fatal day at Hertford House, when you followed us about, your face made a queer impression upon me. I don't mean that I liked it—I didn't, so you need not begin to plume yourself. It was simply that I could not forget it. You had done something to me, though we barely spoke. All the rest of the day, and even when I was at the theatre that evening, the memory of your face, and specially of your eyes, kept swimming into my fancy. When I went to bed I dreamed of you. The shocking part is now to come. Perhaps you won't believe it. I dreamed exactly what has just happened. I thought we were standing just beside this statue, only, of course, in my dream we were in the Gallery; and at the time I wondered how it was that I could see a garden outside, through the window, you said: 'I am quite a stranger, but may I kiss you?' I answered, 'Remember that if you do, it can never be undone.' Then you—you did."
"I did?"
"Yes; and, in the dream, I liked it!"
"Virgie!"