“Isn’t it fine, fine?” he asked her in a whisper lest the charm should fly.
She answered with a sob he did not hear, so keen his thrall to the enchantment. No sign of human habitation lay around except the gravelled walks; the castle towers were hid, the boat-strewn sea was on their left no more. Only the clumps of trees were there, the mossy grass, the flowers whose beauty and plenteousness mocked the posie in the girl’s hands. They walked now silent, expectant every moment of the exit that somehow baffled, and at last they came upon the noble lawn. It stretched from their feet into a remote encroaching eve, no trees beyond visible, no break in all its grey-green flatness edged on either hand by wood. And now the sky had many stars.
Their gravelled path had ceased abruptly; before them the lawn spread like a lake, and they were shy to venture on its surface.
“Let us go on; I must go home, I am far from home,” said Nan, in a trepidation, her flowers shed, her eyes moist with tears. And into her voice had come a strain of dependence on the boy, an accent more pleasing than any he had heard in her before.
“We must walk across there,” he said, looking at the far-off vague edge; but yet he made no move to meet the wishes of the girl now clinging to his arm.
“Come, come,” said she, and pressed him gently at the arm; but yet he stood dubious in the dusk.
“Are you afraid?” she asked, herself whispering, she could not tell why.
He felt his face burn at the reflection; he shook her hand off almost angrily. “Afraid!” said he. “Not I; what makes you think that? Only—only——” His eyes were staring at the lawn.
“Only what?” she whispered again, seeking his side for the comfort of his presence.
“It is stupid,” he confessed, shame in his accent, “but they say the fairies dance there, and I think we might be looking for another way.”