The blood in her veins was dancing to the one perfect
waltz. The moments passed. She drew a little breath and ventured
to look at him. His face was still and white, as though, indeed,
it had been carved out of marble, but the fire in his eyes was a
living thing.
"We have actually been talking nonsense," she said, "and I
thought that you, Prince, were far too serious."
"We were talking fairy tales," he answered, "and they are not
nonsense. Do not you ever read the history of your country as it
was many hundreds of years ago, before this ugly thing they call
civilization weakened the sinews of our race and besmirched the
very face of duty? Do you not like to read of the times when life
was simpler and more natural, and there was space for every man
to live and grow and stretch out his hands to the skies,--every
man and every woman? They call them, in your literature, the days
of romance. They existed, too, in my country. It is not nonsense
to imagine for a little time that the ages between have rolled
away and that those days are with us?"
"No," she answered, "it is not nonsense. But if they were?"
He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. The touch of
his hand, the absolute delicacy of the salute itself, made it
unlike any other caress she had ever known or imagined.
"The world might have been happier for both of us," he whispered.
Somerfield, sullen and discontented, came and looked at them,
moved away, and then hesitatingly returned.
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