“And so—?”
“I desire to be near you often. You speak to me of all my heart desires to be. That is all.”
“I understand,” she said, very slowly, with a strange light in her eyes—“I understand. Let it be so. Say no more.”
As when the moon rises, revealing splendors dusky and magnificent in some silent plain, so this sympathy, this dual comprehension, called into sudden radiance all that was fairest in the hearts of the man and the girl. A great calm seemed to steal upon both, gradual and infinite. For them the Eternal Spirit lifted up its blessed flame. For them the roses rushed into ruddy joy. For them the sea echoed the parables of the stars.
The girl had drawn closer to Gabriel; her hand brushed against his.
“I have been very lonely,” she said, “and it is not good to be alone.”
“No,” he said, in a voice that was half a whisper.
“There would be no loneliness—”
“If men were not fools and if women had not received the poison of the serpent.”
They were both silent for a season. Joan stooped down and gathered snowdrops as they grew against the wall. The man watched her. The flowers seemed emblems of what their love might be.