Stella reached out both her hands to the two men who incorporated the all in all of her little life, and each man took a hand and kissed it.
“I don't want to be horrid and selfish,” she said; “but if I lost either of you, I think it would break my heart.”
The men exchanged glances. John repeated his query: “Do you think it's so damned easy?”
“Tell us why you say that, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
John rose suddenly and stood by the west window, which was closed. Stella's high bed had been drawn next to the window open to the south. The room was warm, for a great fire blazed in the tall chimneypiece. He rose to hide his eyes from Stella, confounding Herold for a marplot. Was this the way to make his task easier? He heard Stella say in her sweet contralto:
“Do you imagine it 's just for silly foolishness I call you Great High Belovedest and Great High Favourite? You see, Walter dear, I gave John his title before I knew you, so I had to make some difference in yours. But they mean everything to me. I live in the sky such a lot, and it's a beautiful life; but I know there 's another life in the great world—a beautiful life, too.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, it 's so difficult to explain! It's so hard to talk about feelings, because the moment you begin to talk about them, the feelings become so vague. It's like trying to tell any one the shape of a sunset.” She paused for a moment or two; Herold smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. Presently she went on: “I 'll try to put it this way. Often a gull, you see, comes hovering outside here and looks in at me, oh, for a long time, with his round, yellow eyes; and my heart beats, and I love him, for he tells me all about the sea and sky and clouds, where I'll never go,—not really,—and I live the sky life through him, and more than ever since you sent me that poem—I know it by heart—about the sea-gull. Who wrote it?”
“Swinburne,” said Herold.
“Did he write anything else?”
“One or two other little things,” replied Herold, judiciously. “I 'll copy them out and bring them to you. But go on.”
“Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon a little bird—I don't know what kind of bird it was—came and sat on the window-sill, and turned his head this way and looked at me, and turned his head that way and looked at me, and I did n't move hand or foot, and I said, 'Cheep, cheep!' And he hopped on the bed and stayed there such a long time. And I talked to him, and he hopped about and looked at me and seemed to tell me all sorts of wonderful things. But he did n't somehow, although he came from the sky, and was a perfect dear. He must have known all about it, but he did n't know how to tell me. Now, you and John come from the beautiful world and tell me wonderful things about it; and I shall never go there really, but I can live in it through you.”