Athalie

"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise

that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised

yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down

at me from it; don't ever step down; don't ever condescend; don't

ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend

entirely to my level--even if we marry."

She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance

there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,--when you

came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,--when

you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful

home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of

me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when

you listened to your mother's wishes and gave me up. I understand it

so much better, now. I know how it was--with your father dead and your

beautiful mother, broken, desolate, confiding to your keeping all her

hope and pride and future happiness,--all the traditions of the

family, and its dignity and honour!

"In the light of a clearer knowledge, do you suppose I blame you now?

Do you suppose I blame you for anything?--for your long and

broken-hearted and bitter silence?--for the quick resurgence of your

affection for me--for your love--Oh, Clive!--for your passion?

"Do you suppose I think less of you because you love me--care for me

in the many and inexplicable ways that a man cares for a

woman?--because you want me as a man wants the woman he loves, as his

wife if it may be so, as his own, anyhow?"

She let her eyes rest on him in a new and fearless comprehension,

tender, curious, sad by turns.

"It is the romance of passion in you that has been fighting to awaken

the Sleeping Princess of a legend," she said with a slight smile; "it

is the same illogical, impulsive romance that draws back just as her

closed lids tremble, fearing to awaken her to the sorrows and

temptations of a world which, after all, God made for us to wake in."

"Athalie! I am a scoundrel if I have--"

"Oh, Clive!" she laughed, mocking the solemn measure of her own words;

"adorable boy of impulse and romance, never to outgrow its magic

armour, destined always to be ruled by dreams through the sweetest and

most generous of hearts, you need not fear for me. I am already

awake--at least I am sufficiently aroused to understand you--and

something, too, of my own self which I have never hitherto

understood."