She was going, and Everest rose from his seat and saw her flushed with excitement and pleasure, a joyous, shining vision in the lamplight. The colour came suddenly to his own face, the dark eyes lit up, he made a movement towards her.
"Regina, one good-night kiss."
She looked back at him standing under the light. Just behind him, near the closed panels of the door into his room, over his shoulder she saw the open casement standing wide to the mysterious, all-sheltering night. She hesitated, and suddenly Everest turned aside.
"No, it is better not; you are my guest this evening. Good-night, my sweet."
Regina backed towards the door and softly, silently vanished through it. With flying, noiseless feet she ran up the stairs to her own room and there, laying the paper sheets on the bed, threw herself on her knees beside it with her head on her outstretched arms.
CHAPTER III THE GIFT
For some days Everest and Regina had no opportunity of meeting in the enchanted garden. The family had the idea that their guest was to be entertained and amused, and set themselves to their self-imposed task with commendable thoroughness. He was driven out to afternoon teas, escorted to flower-shows, taken to garden-parties; lawn-tennis was arranged for the morning; rides in the wood or motorboat excursions on the sea for the afternoon; and though Regina took no part in a great many of these various diversions, still the same roof was sheltering them both, they saw each other constantly, and almost always at breakfast the conversation was entirely theirs. In this way the passion between them grew and grew; all the more steadfastly as it was impossible for them to gratify their strenuous wish to be alone in each other's society, to know the joy again—the "divine joy," as Plato describes it, "of the kiss and the touch."