Three Weeks

Who can tell the joy of their awakening? The transcendent pleasure to Paul to be allowed to play with his lady's hair, all unbound for him to do with as he willed? The glory to realise she was his--his own--in his arms? And then to be tenderly masterful and give himself lordly airs of possession. She was almost silent, only the history of the whole world of passion seemed written in her eyes--slumbrous, inscrutable, their heavy lashes making shadows on her soft, smooth cheeks.

The ring-dove was gone, a thing of mystery lay there instead--unresisting, motionless, white. Now and then Paul looked at her half in fear. Was she real? Was it some dream, and would he wake in his room at Verdayne Place among the sporting prints and solid Chippendale furniture to hear Tompson saying, "Eight o'clock, sir, and a fine day"?

Oh, no, no, she was real! He raised himself, and bent down to touch her tenderly with his forefinger. Yes, all this fascination was indeed his, living and breathing and warm, and he was her lover and lord. Ah!

The same coloured orchid-mauve silk curtains as at Lucerne were drawn over the open windows, so the sun in high heaven seemed only as dawn in the room, filtering though the jalousies outside. But what was time? Time counts as one lives, and Paul was living now.

It was twelve o'clock before they were ready for their dainty breakfast, laid out under the balcony awning.

And the lady talked tenderly and occupied herself with the fancies of her lord, as a new bride should.

But all the time the mystery stayed in her eyes. And the thought came to Paul that were he to live with her for a hundred years, he would never be sure of their real meaning.

"What shall we do with our day, my Paul?" she said presently. "See, you shall choose. Shall we climb to the highest point on this mountain and look at our kingdom of trees and lake below? Or shall we rest in the launch and glide over the blue water, and dream sweet dreams? Or shall we drive in the carriage far inland to a quaint farmhouse I know, where we shall see people living in simple happiness with their cows and their sheep? Decide, sweetheart--decide!"

"Whatever you would wish, my Queen," said Paul.

Then the lady frowned, and summer lightnings flashed from her eyes.

"Of course, what I shall wish! But I have told you to choose, feeble Paul! There is nothing so irritates me as these English answers. Should I have asked you to select our day had I decided myself? I would have commanded Dmitry to make the arrangements, that is all. But no! to-day I am thy obedient one. I ask my Love to choose for me. To-morrow I may want my own will; to-day I desire only thine, beloved," and she leant forward and looked into his eyes.