“Oh, but mine was the truth,” he replied.
“And so was mine,” she answered. “So it’s arranged that I am the Sleeping Beauty awakened, and you the fairy prince that awakened me, and now I shall have to follow you through all the world, as she did him in Tennyson’s poem.”
Harrington’s color rose, and he dropped her hands. Muriel blushed too, for she felt that what she had said in thoughtless play had carried some deeper sense to him than she had intended.
“Pardon me, John,” she murmured, “I did not mean to offend you.”
“You offend me!” exclaimed Harrington, in astonishment. “You, Muriel! Indeed, no.”
“Then why did you color?” she asked archly, reassured.
“I? Oh—no matter. I was thinking of something.”
“Of what? Come now. Be frank, John. I desire—I command”—
Harrington looked confused for a moment. An impulse came to him.
“It is you who must tell me, Muriel,” he said in a low voice.