Diana pondered; her eyes dim.
"How one would like to do something for him!--to give him pleasure!"
Marsham caressed her hand.
"So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best friends. But he mustn't make Ferrier jealous."
Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the new ties of kindred or friendship that Marsham was to bring her--modestly indeed, yet in the temper of one who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving.
"I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright look. "I'm glad you have so many!"
"Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely sometimes? Poor darling!" he said, tenderly, "it must have been solitary often at Portofino."
"Oh no--I had papa." Then her truthfulness overcame her. "I don't mean to say I didn't often want friends of my own age--girl friends especially."
"You can't have them now!"--he said, passionately, as they paused at a wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. "I want you all--all--to myself." And in the shadow of the yew he put his arms round her again, and their hearts beat together.
But our nature moves within its own inexorable limits. In Diana, Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace awakened that strange mingled happiness, that happiness reared and based on tragedy, which the pure and sensitive feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured by its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes through the experience which means the life of the race. As her lips felt Marsham's kiss, she knew, as generations of women have known before her, that life could give her no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and parting that made it so intolerably sweet.