"Do you remember how you would explain to me over and over again, about sermons being in stones? And how you laughed when I asked Mammy if she understood. No, I don't believe I've forgotten anything," laughing lightly, as the restraint slipped from her and the old feeling of sympathy rushed back. "How your voice brings it all back to me! Have I been asleep and dreaming all these years and just awakened? I can shut my eyes and listen to you, and at once I am a little girl again. That is what I am going to do now. Talk to me, as you say I used to talk to you. Tell me of your great success."
Sargent gazed at her as she leaned back against the bench, one hand over her eyes to shut out all sense of reality. He could see the gentle rise and fall of her bosom beneath the thin frock; and the helpless, tired look of her hand as it lay in her lap, struck him with a peculiar tenderness. It made him forget for a moment. He leaned forward to kiss it, then drew back slowly.
"I used to tell you fairy tales then," he began at last. "You see—I can't now. You wouldn't believe them."
With her hand still before her eyes she answered him.
"Start at the time when I went away and tell me everything. I know it will sound like a fairy tale—your rise to the heights."
"My rise," he said, questioningly. "I believe it has come."
Natalia turned towards him, her face brilliant.
"Then you were elected—you go to Washington—Uncle Felix said the news would come to-night!"
Sargent turned away from the brilliance of her glance. It was almost too much for him to bear that she should have thought that was what he meant. Suddenly his lips tightened firmly. She should not know!
"You don't know what happiness it is to me to know it," Natalia continued, her face glowing with a new happiness. "I thought I had caused you to give up your election, to come to me. Now, it is all different. Everything with you is successful—absolutely everything you undertake."