“Very well then,” she said; “and now, you say it!”
And she made him repeat the words—“I take thee, Corydon, to be the companion of my soul. I give myself to thee freely, for the sake of love, and I will stay so long as thy soul is better with me than without. But if ever this should cease to be, I will leave thee; for if my soul is weaker than thine, I have no right to be thy mate.”
“Now,” she exclaimed, with an eager laugh—“now we’re married!” And as he looked he caught the glint of a tear in her eyes.
Section 3. But the world would not be content to leave it on that basis. When they parted that afternoon, it was with a carefully-arranged program of work—they were to visit each other on alternate days and go on with their German and music. But in less than a week they had run upon an obstruction; there was no quiet room for them at Corydon’s save her bedroom, and one evening when Thyrsis came, she made the announcement that they could no longer study there.
“Why not?” he asked.
“Well,” explained Corydon, “they say the maid might think it wasn’t nice.”
She had expected him to fly into a rage, but he only smiled grimly. “I had come to tell you the same sort of thing,” he explained. “It seems you can’t visit me so often, and you’re never to stay after ten o’clock at night.”
“Why is that?” she inquired.
“It’s a question of what the hall-boy might think,” said he.
They sat gazing at each other in silence. “You see,” said Thyrsis, at last, “the thing is impossible—we’ve got to go and get married. The world will never give us any peace until we do.”