"Listen to me, sweetheart," she said, with her face so close to mine that I had all I could do to refrain from interrupting her. "We must not belittle the perils that lie yonder. There are two lives in danger now, for if anything should happen to you, it would kill me also. I am selfish now, Dubravnik, in my concern for you, for after all it is myself whom I would protect, through you. But we must not belittle the danger. I know that you are brave and daring; that you have no fear. I realize that you view with contempt the perils that beset you, but oh, my love, suppose that you should not escape."
"Why suppose it, Zara? I am here; the danger is there. We need not anticipate it. Let us leave it to be met at the proper moment, forgetting for this once, that it exists."
"No, no, we must control ourselves. We have been children for an hour or more, forgetful of all things save love; but now let us be what we are, a man and a woman who have perils to face."
"And who, I trust, have the courage to meet them, Zara."
"Ay, courage; but courage alone does not always accomplish the sought for end. Courage alone is not inevitably competent to meet and overcome conditions. And we need more than courage, Dubravnik; we need resource."
"Resource is something with which we are both moderately well provided," I suggested, smiling, and still refusing to accept her words as seriously as she intended them.
She stamped her foot impatiently upon the rug, and frowned a little, with a touch of petulance in her manner that was the most bewitching thing I had yet seen about her.
"Do be your own self for a moment," she commanded me, withdrawing from my restraining arm and stepping away out of my reach.
"How can I be myself, when I see and realize only you?" I bantered her.
Then came another transition almost as startling as it was complete.