Eve rested against Canterton’s outspread arm, her head upon his shoulder, as they wandered to and fro between the tall trunks of the firs. They were like ghosts gliding side by side, for the carpet of pine needles deadened the sound of their footsteps, and they spoke but little, in voices that were but murmurs.
For a brief hour they were forgetting life and its problems, letting self sink into self, surrendering everything to an intimate exultation in their nearness to each other. Sometimes they would pause, swayed by some common impulse, and stand close together, looking into each other’s eyes.
They spoke to each other as a man and woman speak but once or twice in the course of a lifetime.
“Dear heart, is it possible that this is you?”
“Am I not flesh and blood?”
“That you should care!”
“Put your hand here. Can you not feel my heart beating?”
He would slip his hand under her head, draw her face to his, and kiss her forehead, mouth and eyes. And she would sigh with each kiss, closing her eyes in a kind of ecstasy.
“Did you ever dream of me?”
“Often.”