Bedient dismounted, pulled the reins over the mare's head and through his arm; then held up both hands to her…. Something made her hesitate a second. He did not seem to consider her faltering.
"Oh, Beth, why should we rush in there, as if we were afraid of the light?… Come!"
She knew by his eyes what would happen; and yet she leaned forward, until his hands fitted under her arms, and her eyelids dropped against the blinding light….
"It had to be in the great sunlight—that!…. How glorious you are!"
"Please … put me down!"
But again, he kissed her mouth, and the shut eyelids. And when her feet at last touched the earth, he caught her up again, because her figure swayed a little,—and laughed and kissed her—until the fainting passed….
* * * * *
"… And—these—were—the—great—things—you asked permission to tell me?" she said slowly, without raising her eyes.
The strange smile on her scarlet lips, and the lustrous pallor of her face, so wonderfully prevailed, that he caught her in his arms again. And they were quite alone in that mighty light, as if they had penetrated dragons-deep in an enchanted forest.
"I cannot help it. You are stronger!" she said in the same trailing, faery tone…. "And that distance—between us—that you always felt—in 'the cycle of Cathay'—you seem to have overcome that——"