Now he said to her dreamily, as he followed her through a shadowy by-path which crept into a sunlit forest of dripping willow-trees:
“Some day I shall awake. It cannot be true that I am here with you alone in these wild mountains, wandering along in this aimless bliss!”
Because she put back her hand, and he took it perforce in his own, he continued in his low, wooing voice:
“And when I wake, little Tama, I will know the truth of what you once said to me: that our dreams are the most beautiful of all.”
She stopped and turned back to him, with the tall foliage and grass almost burying her in its thickness:
“You god no udder dream more beautiful?” she questioned wistfully.
“No other,” he answered softly. “Have you?”
“No. This is mos’ bes’ dream of all—jost be ’lone wiz you ad those mountains! Thas bes’ dream in all the whole worl’, Tojin-san!”
In the silence that fell between them, and as he still clasped her hands, a momentary shadow flitted across her face, and she stood wide-eyed, as though she saw a vision.
“Alas!” she said in such a mournful tone: “Dreams like unto thad mist. Now here so sweet, so—so beyond our touch. Next hour gone—gone perhaps foraever! Nod even the gods know where they gone!”