“And now?” he whispered.
“Ah, more than then!” The low cry leapt from her lips. “A thousand times more.”
“But you don’t trust me?”
“Why don’t I, Ban?” she pleaded. “What have you done? How have you changed?”
He shook his head. “Yet you’ve given me your love. Do you trust yourself?”
“Yes,” she answered with a startling quietude of certainty. “In that I do. Absolutely.”
“Then I’ll chance the rest. You’re upset to-night, aren’t you, Io? You’ve let your imagination run away with you.”
“This isn’t a new thing to me. It began—I don’t know when it began. Yes; I do. Before I ever knew or thought of you. Oh, long before! When I was no more than a baby.”
“Rede me your riddle, love,” he said lightly.
“It’s so silly. You mustn’t laugh; no, you wouldn’t laugh. But you mustn’t be angry with me for being a fool. Childhood impressions are terribly lasting things, Ban.... Yes, I’m going to tell you. It was a nurse I had when I was only four, I think; such a pretty, dainty Irish creature, the pink-and-black type. She used to cry over me and say—I don’t suppose she thought I would ever understand or remember—‘Beware the brown-eyed boys, darlin’. False an’ foul they are, the brown ones. They take a girl’s poor heart an’ witch it away an’ twitch it away, an’ toss it back all crushed an’ spoilt.’ Then she would hug me and sob. She left soon after; but the warning has haunted me like a superstition.... Could you kiss it away, Ban? Tell me I’m a little fool!”