Beyond the Rocks

"Was she not even sympathetic?" asked Theodora, and again there was that

catch in her breath.

"Yes, she was sympathetic," he continued, "but this was not enough for

the prince; he wanted her to be wounded, too."

"How very, very cruel of him," said Theodora.

"But men are cruel, and the prince was only a man, you know, although he

was in a green forest with a lovely princess."

"And what happened?" asked Theodora.

"Well, the watch-dog slept on, so that a friendly zephyr could come, and

it whispered to the prince: 'At the end of all these allées, which lead

into the future, there is only one thing, and that is Love; he bars

their gates. As soon as you start down one, no matter which, you will

find him, and when he sees your princess he will shoot an arrow at her,

too.'"

"Oh, then the princess of course never went down an allée," said

Theodora--and she smiled radiantly to hide how her heart was

beating--"did she?"

"The end of the story I do not know," said Lord Bracondale; "the fairy

who told it to me would not say what happened to them, only that the

prince was wounded, deeply wounded, with Love's arrow. Aren't you sorry

for the prince, beautiful princess?"

Theodora opened her blue parasol, although no ray of sunshine fell upon

her there. She was going through the first moment of this sort in her

life. She was quite unaccustomed to fencing, or to any intercourse with

men--especially men of his world. She understood this story had himself

and herself for hero and heroine; she felt she must continue the

badinage--anything to keep the tone as light as it could be, with all

these new emotions flooding her being and making her heart beat. It was

almost pain she experienced, the sensation was so intense, and Hector

read of these things in her eyes and was content. So he let his voice

grow softer still, and almost whispered again: "And aren't you sorry for the prince--beautiful princess?"

"I am sorry for any one who suffers," said Theodora, gently, "even in a

fairy story."

And as he looked at her he thought to himself, here was a rare thing, a

beautiful woman with a tender heart. He knew she would be gentle and

kind to the meanest of God's creatures. And again the vision of her at

Bracondale came to him--his mother would grow to love her perhaps even

more than Morella Winmarleigh! How she would glorify everything

commonplace with those tender ways of hers! To look at her was like

looking up into the vast, pure sky, with the light of heaven beyond. And

yet he lay on the grass at her feet with his mind full of thoughts and

plans and desires to drag this angel down from her high heaven--into his

arms!