To a stone seat beside a stream,
O'er which the columned wood did frame
A rootless temple, like a fane
Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
Man's early race once knelt beneath
The overhanging Deity.
Here they rested, while Margaret, lost in the charm of the surroundings, exclaimed:
"Could anything be more delightful than this?"
Geoffrey had always been conscious of something in Margaret's presence which, seemingly without demand, exacted finer thought and led him to some unknown region which other women did not suggest. When with her he divined that it was by some such influence that men are separately civilized, and that, with her, his own civilization was possible. Every short-lived, ill-considered hope for the future seemed now so entangled with her identity that her existence had become in some way necessary to him. He had come to know this by discovering how unfeigned was the earnestness with which he angled for her good opinion, and he was rather puzzled to note his care lest "a word too much or a look too long" might spoil his chances of arriving at some higher, happier life that her presence assisted him vaguely to imagine. Nevertheless, so great was his doubt as to his own character that all this seemed to him as if he must be merely masquerading in sheep's clothing to gain her consideration, and that it must in some way soon come to an end from his own sheer inability to live up to it. All he knew was that this living up to an ideal self was a civilizing process, and if he did not count upon its permanency it certainly, he thought, did him no harm while it lasted. "After all, was it not possible to continue in the upper air?"
While his thoughts were running in this channel, such a long pause elapsed, that Margaret had forgotten what he was answering to when he said decisively: "Yes. It is pleasant."
She looked around at him because his voice sounded as if he had been weighing other things than the scenery in his head.
"Oh, it is more than pleasant," she said. "It is something never to forget." Margaret looked away over earth, water, and sky, as if to point them out to interpret her enthusiasm. Her range of view apparently did not include Geoffrey. Perhaps he was to understand from this that he, personally, had little or nothing to do with her pleasure. But a glimpse of one idea suggested more serious thought, and the next moment she was wondering how much he had to do with her present thorough content.
Geoffrey, who was watching her thoughts by noticing the half smile and half blush that came to her face, felt his heart give a little bound. He imagined he divined the presence of the thought that puzzled her, but he answered in the off-hand way in which one deals with generalities.
"I believe, Miss Margaret, this whole trip provides you with great happiness."
"I believe it does," said Margaret. To conceal a sense of consciousness she uprooted a rush growing at the edge of the rock seat.