A dozen emotions fought together for expression, but all were crowded back, and he answered in commonplace:
“I have been here nearly a week.”
“So long?” she said, questioning.
He fancied he caught a note of reproach in her tone, so far had his self-esteem come back, and a pang of regret crossed him at the thought that he had lost those days.
“I am a fool,” he said irrelevantly, but with air so dejected that one far less clever than she would have followed his thought.
She laughed merrily, and the sound of her voice completed his undoing. He was back to elemental simplicity again, and the passion that was uppermost in his heart came bursting out with truthful bluntness.
“You are the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said.
Again the blush swept across her face and the long lashes fell over the merry eyes. The flood-gate of his speech was lifted at last. The torrent of his emotion flowed forth with the rush of waters long pent up, telling her the ancient story he had known all his life, but which only that last quarter hour had revealed to him. And the girl, listening with fluttering heart, heard more than he said, for he was answering the question she had asked herself, and she understood now her hot protest at the message of the nakodo.
They sat down by the great rock on the far slope of the hill, where the thick pines screened them from the view of visitors to the shrine, and where the sea lay blue, strong, and peaceful below them. For an hour of which no power ever could rob them, heart was laid bare to heart. Innocently, simply, with the peace of the glorious day, they prattled of the wonder that was theirs, the discovery they alone of all the world had made, and never a thought cloud floated across their heaven to disturb the serenity of its sunshine.
