"It is my own treasure-trove! I found it last year and I have been waiting to bring you to it on my fête—what you call birthday! And now wish me some beautiful thing—it may come true! There is a superstition in my country—but I shall not tell you—unless the wish comes true!"
He broke off a spray of the waxen buds and crowned her solemnly where she stood.
"I have already wished for you—the most beautiful thing in the world!"
She shook her head, sorrowful. "Man, dear, the only thing in all the world I still want is the impossible!"
"Only the impossible is worth while—and I have wished!"
She shook her head again, laughing a little ruefully. "It could not arrive—my impossible—and yet you almost tempt me to hope!"
"Anything—everything may arrive! You once thought that such a friendship as this of ours could not, and lo, we have achieved it!"
"I wonder"—her eyes seemed fixed on some far prospect, a world beyond the flowery way—"I wonder if we have! And I wonder why you have never made a guess about my world when you have at least let me get a peep now and then into yours?"
"I don't care a rap about your 'world,'" he smiled into her eyes, "while I have you!"
"No curiosity about my—my profession?"