“Yes, yes: I love you with all my heart and soul.”
He sought her lips again, and she nearly fainted with the rapture; she yielded herself to his strong, encircling arms, and felt that there she could happily die.
“Oh, Basil, I want your love—I want your love badly.”
“Now nothing can separate us. You belong to me for ever.”
He passed his hands over her face, and his eyes were flaming. She exulted in his ardent passion, proud that a man on her account should be thus frenzied.
“Say again that you love me,” she whispered.
“Oh, Hilda, Hilda, at last! We’ll go to a land where the whole earth speaks only of love, and where only love and youth and beauty matter.”
“Let’s go where we can be together always. We have so short a time; let’s snatch all the happiness we can.”
He kissed her again, and in her ecstasy she burst into tears. They talked madly of their love and past anguish, making venturesome plans for the future, forgetting all but the passion that devoured them. At that moment only the present existed, and they wondered how it had been possible to live so long apart. She pressed his hands joyfully when he said that nothing now could separate them, for they belonged to one another for ever and always; and it signified not if they lost their souls, for they gained the whole world. But suddenly Hilda sprang up.
“Take care! There’s somebody coming.”