Beyond the Rocks

"We have turned our backs on the road we came," he said, "and on another

road that leads in a roundabout way to the Grande Avenue again. So now

we must look into the unknown and the future."

"It seems all very green and fair," said Theodora, and she leaned back

against the tree and half closed her eyes.

He lay on the grass at her feet, his hat thrown off beside him, and in

a desert island they could not have been more alone and undisturbed.

The greatest temptation that Hector Bracondale had ever yet had in his

life came to him then. To make love to her, to tell her of all the new

thoughts she had planted in his soul, of the windows she had opened wide

to the sunlight. To tell her that he loved her, that he longed to touch

even the tips of her fingers, that the thought of caressing her lips and

her eyes and her hair drove the blood coursing madly through his veins.

That to dream of what life could be like, if she were really his own,

was a dream of intoxicating bliss.

And something of all this gleamed in his eyes as he gazed up at her--and

Theodora, all unused to the turbulence of emotion, was troubled and

moved and yet wildly happy. She looked away down the centre avenue, and

she began to speak fast with a little catch in her breath, and Hector

clinched his hands together and gazed at a beetle in the grass, or

otherwise he would have taken her in his arms.

"Tell me the story of all these avenues," she said; "tell me a fairy

story suitable to the day."

And he fell in with her mood. So he began: "Once upon a time there was a fairy prince and princess, and a witch

had enchanted them and put them in a green forest, but had set a

watch-dog over Love--so that the poor Cupid with his bow and arrows

might not shoot at them, and they were told they might live and enjoy

the green wood and find what they could of sport and joy. But Cupid

laughed. 'As if,' he said, 'there is anything in a green wood of good

without me--and my shafts!' So while the watch-dog slept--it was a warm,

warm day in May, just such as this--he shot an arrow at the prince and

it entered his heart. Then he ran off laughing. 'That is enough for one

day,' he said. And the poor prince suffered and suffered because he was

wounded and the princess had not received a dart, too--and could not

feel for him."