She arose, and walked a step or two, trying to quell the tumult within her.
"We must be going. It is late," she said in a way that showed her self-command.
Geoffrey arose also, to go away, and they walked to the higher ground. Suddenly Margaret felt that for some reason she wished to remember the appearance of this place for all her life, and she turned to view it again. The moon was silvering the tracery of vines and foliage and the surface of the twisting water, and giving dark-olive tones to the shadowed underbrush close by. The large hotels could be seen through a gap in the islands with their many lights twinkling in the distance; a lighthouse, not far off, sent a red gleam twirling and twisting across the current toward them, and a whip-poor-will was giving forth its notes, while the waltz music from the far-away island floated dreamily on the soft evening breeze. Geoffrey said nothing. He, too, was under the influence of the scene. For once he was afraid to speak to a woman—afraid to venture what he had to say—to win or lose all. He thought it better to wait, and stood beside her almost trembling. But Margaret had had no experience in dealing with the new feelings that warred for mastery within her, and she showed one of her thoughts, as if in soliloquy. She was too innocent. The vague pressures were too great to allow her to be silent, and the words came forth with hasty fervor.
"No, no! You must be wrong when you say there is nothing in the world worth living for?"
"No, not so," interrupted Geoffrey. "I did not say that. I said that life, for many of us, was mediocre, because ideals were scarce and imaginations did not find scope. But there is a better life—I know there is—the better life of sympathy—of care—of joy—of love."
As she listened, each deep note that Geoffrey separately brought forth filled her with an overwhelming gladness. When he spoke slowly of sympathy, care, joy, and love, the words were freighted with the musical notes of a strong man's passion, and they seemed to bring a new meaning to her, one deeper than they had ever borne before.
Earth and heaven seemed one,
Life a glad trembling on the outer edge
Of unknown rapture.
What a transparent confession the love of a great nature may be suddenly betrayed into! The tears welled up into Margaret's eyes, and, partly to check the speech that moved her too strongly, and partly to steady herself, and chiefly because she did not know what she was doing, she laid her hand upon his arm.
He trembled as he tried to continue calmly with what he had been saying. He did not move his arm or take her hand, but her touch was like electricity.
"I know there is such a life—a perfect life—and that there might be such a life for me, a life that more than exhausts my imagination to conceive of. You were wrong in saying that I said—that is, I only said—oh, I can't remember what I said—I only know that I worship you, Margaret—that you are my heaven, my hereafter—the only good I know—with power to make or mar, to raise me from myself and to gild the whole world for me—"