"I know I was a Goth," said Paul. "I can hardly realise it myself, the change that has happened to me. Everything now seems full of joy."
"Your very phrases are altered, Paul, and will alter more yet, while our moon waxes and our love grows."
"Can it grow? Can I possibly love you more intensely than I do now--surely no!" he exclaimed passionately. "And yet--"
"And yet?"
"Ah! yes, I know it. Yes, it can grow until it is my life--my very life."
"Yes, Paul," she said, "your life"--and her strange eyes narrowed again, the Sphinx's inscrutable look of mystery in their chameleon depths.
Then her mood altered, she became gay and laughing, and her wit sparkled like dry champagne, while the white launch glided through the blue waters with never a swirl of foam.
"Paul," she said presently, "to-morrow we will go up the Rigi to the Kaltbad, and look from the little kiosk over the world, and over the Bernese Oberland. It gives me an emotion to stand so high and see so vast a view--but to-day we will play on the water and among the trees."
He had no desires except to do what she would do, so they landed for lunch at one of the many little inviting hotels which border the lake in sheltered bays. All through the meal she entertained him with subtle flattery, drawing him out, and making him shine until he made flint for her steel. And when they came to the end she said with sudden, tender sweetness: "Paul--it is my caprice--you may pay the bill to-day--just for to-day--because--Ah! you must guess, my Paul! the reason why!"
And she ran out into the sunlight, her cheeks bright pink.
But Paul knew it was because now she belonged to him. His heart swelled with joy--and who so proud as he?
She had gone alone up a mountain path when he came out to join her, and stood there laughing at him provokingly from above. He bounded up and caught her, and would walk hand in hand, and made her feel that he was master and lord through the strength of his splendid, vigorous youth. He pretended to scold her if she stirred from him, and made her stand or walk and obey him, and gave himself the airs of a husband and prince.
And the lady laughed in pure ecstatic joy. "Oh! I love you, my Paul--like this, like this! Beautiful one! Just a splendid primitive savage beneath the grace, as a man should be. When I feel how strong you are my heart melts with bliss!"