Athalie

"I know it.... There is no fear mingling with your happiness; is

there, Clive?"

But before he replied she knew that it was so.

"Dearest," she murmured, "dearest! You must not be afraid for me."

And suddenly the long pent fears strangled him; he could not speak;

and she felt his lips, hot and tremulous against her hand.

"My heart!" she whispered, "all will go well. There is absolutely no

reason for you to be afraid."

"Do you know it?"

"Yes, I know it. I am certain of it, darling. Everything will turn

out as it should.... I can't bear to have the most beautiful moments

of our lives made sad for you by apprehension. Won't you believe me

that all will go well?"

"Yes."

"Then smile at me, Clive."

His under lip was still unsteady as he drew nearer and took her into

his arms.

"God wouldn't do such harm," he said. "He couldn't! All must go

well."

She smiled gaily and framed his head with her hands: "You're just a boy, aren't you, C. Bailey, Junior?--just a big boy,

yet. As though the God we understand--you and I--could deal otherwise

than tenderly with us. He knows how rare love really is. He will not

disturb it. The world needs it for seed."

The smile gradually faded from Clive's face; he shook his head,

slightly: "If I had known--if I had understood--"

"What, darling?"

"The hazard--the chances you are to take--"

But she laughed deliciously, and sealed his mouth with her fragrant

hand, bidding him hunt for other sources of worry if he really was

bent on scaring himself.

Later she asked him for a calendar, and he brought it, and together

they looked over it where several of the last days of May had been

marked with a pencil.

As she sat beside him, studying the printed sequence of the days, a

smile hovering on her lips, he thought he had never seen her so

beautiful.

A soft wind blew the bright tendrils of her hair across her cheeks;

her skin was like a little girl's, rose and snow, smooth as a child's;

her eyes clearly, darkly blue--the hue and tint called azure--like the

colour of the zenith on some still June day.

And through the glow of her superb and youthful symmetry, ever, it

seemed to him, some inward radiance pulsated, burning in her golden

burnished hair, in scarlet on her lips, making lovely the soft

splendour of her eyes. Hers was the fresh, sweet beauty of ardent

youth and spring incarnate,--neither frail and colourlessly spiritual,

nor tainted with the stain of clay.