"But that is the balladist's notion. The truth is that you were a lady at

the Court of Clovis, and I was a heathen captive. I heard you sing a

Christian hymn--and asked for baptism." By a great effort he managed to

look as if he did not mean it.

But she did not seem over-pleased with his fancy, for, the surprise fading

from her face, "Oh, that was the way you remembered!" she said.

"Perhaps it was not that way alone. You won't despise me for being mawkish

to-night?" he asked. "I haven't had the chance for so long."

The night air wrapped them warmly, and the balm of the little breezes

that stirred the foliage around them was the smell of damask roses from

the garden. The creek tinkled over the pebbles at their feet, and a drowsy

bird, half-wakened by the moon, crooned languorously in the sycamores. The

girl looked out at the flashing water through downcast lashes. "Is it

because it is so transient that beauty is pathetic?" she said; "because we

can never come back to it in quite the same way? I am a sentimental girl.

If you are born so, it is never entirely teased out of you, is it?

Besides, to-night is all a dream. It isn't real, you know. You couldn't be

mawkish."

Her tone was gentle as a caress, and it made him tingle to his finger-

tips. "How do you know?" he asked in a low voice.

"I just know. Do you think I'm very 'bold and forward'?" she said,

dreamily.

"It was your song I wanted to be sentimental about. I am like one 'who

through long days of toil'--only that doesn't quite apply--'and nights

devoid of ease'--but I can't claim that one doesn't sleep well here; it is

Plattville's specialty--like one who "'Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.'"

"Those blessed old lines!" she said. "Once a thing is music or poetry, all

the hand-organs and elocutionists in the world cannot ruin it, can they?

Yes; to live here, out of the world, giving up the world, doing good and

working for others, working for a community as you do----"

"I am not quite shameless," he interrupted, smilingly. "I was given a life

sentence for incompetency, and I've served five years of it, which have

been made much happier than my deserts."

"No," she persisted, "that is your way of talking of yourself; I know you

would always 'run yourself down,' if one paid any attention to it. But to

give up the world, to drop out of it without regret, to come here and do

what you have done, and to live the life that must be so desperately dry

and dull for a man of your sort, and yet to have the kind of heart that

makes wonderful melodies sing in itself--oh!" she cried, "I say that is

fine!"




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