"What a heavenly day!" Everest exclaimed. "I wish you were coming with us this afternoon."
"So do I, as you are going," she answered, looking up at him, delighting in the sensation of walking beside him and seeing that dark brilliant face above her. "But I know my sisters will like it best as it is. I shall go to the garden and think about you instead."
"Of me? A poor subject, I am afraid. You were better off with the Cyclops."
"I can't get interested in it now. Do you know, I tried everything this morning: Greek and Latin and painting, and I tried to play; it was all no good. I had to just sit still and think about you."
Everest looked at her, but she met his gaze quite openly and simply. Her eyes were innocent, frank, ingenuous. There seemed no design on her part to flatter him. She merely appeared to feel no necessity for concealing what she thought. She admired him and said so, she thought about him and said so. That was all. There was none of the veiled would-be seduction of the women he was accustomed to.
Praise and adulation so absolutely transparent, so obviously honest, has an irresistible power. It ceases to be flattery; it becomes homage, and has its effect on the recipient, as incense has upon the senses.
"I shall be sorry if my coming here has interrupted your work and lessened your powers," he answered, and his voice had grown suddenly so sad and grave that Regina exclaimed:
"Oh, never be sorry for me that you have come! If you knew how perfectly happy I am. Your visit here and your companionship is to me just as if the sun or moon had come down to walk about with me."
Everest laughed outright.
"Either might be a most dangerous companion, it seems to me," he answered, and Regina laughed with him.