Herold asked for the million-billionth time in the history of mankind:
“When did you first find that you loved me?”
She replied, perhaps more truly than most maidens:
“There was never a time when I didn’t love you. I mean—I don’t quite know what I mean,” she said confusedly. “You see, I’ve lived a strange life, dear,” she went on. “You seem to have been a part of me ever since I can remember what is worth remembering. You have always understood things that went on inside me almost before I could tell them to you. I always wanted you to explain foolishnesses that I couldn’t speak of to any one else.”
“That’s very beautiful,” Herold interrupted, “but love is a different matter. When did the real love come to you?”
“I think it was that morning in the garden when you almost whipped me,” said Stella. She started an inch or two away from him. “And I’m sure you knew it,” she said.
And he remembered, as he had often remembered in his great struggle, her eyes, turning from agates to diamonds and her words, “Do you love me like that?”
“Heaven knows, Stellamaris dear; I did not mean to betray myself.”
She laughed the enigmatic laugh of a woman’s contentment, and Herold was too wise to ask why.
They spoke of deepest things. “There is something I must tell you,” said he, “which up to now I have had to keep secret, and it is right that you should know.”