Now this Thursday was the night of the full moon. A cloudless morning sky promised a glorious evening.
The lovers woke early, and had their breakfast on the loggia overlooking the oleander garden. The lady was in an enchanting mood of sunshine, and no one could have guessed of the sorrow of her dawn vigil thoughts. She was wayward and playful--one moment petting Paul with exquisite sweetness, the next teasing his curls and biting the lobes of his ears. She never left him for one second--it seemed she must teach him still more subtle caresses, and call forth even new shades of emotion and bliss. All fear was banished, only a brilliant glory remained. She laughed and half-closed her eyes with provoking smiles. She undulated about, creeping as a serpent over her lover, and kissing his eyelids and hair. They were so infinitely happy it was growing to afternoon before they thought of leaving their loggia, and then they started in the open gondola, and glided away through quaint, narrow canals until they came to the lagoon.
"We shall not stay in the gondola long, my Paul," she said. "I cannot bear to be out of your arms, and our palace is fair. And oh! my beloved, to-night I shall feast you as never before. The night of our full moon! Paul, I have ordered a bower of roses and music and song. I want you to remember it the whole of your life."
"As though I could forget a moment of our time, my sweet," said Paul. "It needs no feasts or roses--only whatever delights you to do, delights me too."
"Paul," she cooed after a while, during which her hand had lain in his and there had been a soft silence, "is not this a life of joy, so smooth and gliding, this way of Venice? It seems far from ruffles and storms. I shall love it always, shall not you? and you must come back in other years and study its buildings and its history, Paul--with your new, fine eyes."
"We shall come together, my darling," he answered. "I should never want anything alone."
"Sweetheart!" she cooed again in his ears; and then presently, "Paul," she said, "some day you must read 'Salammbo,' that masterpiece of Flaubert's. There is a spirit of love in that which now you would understand--the love which looked out of Matho's eyes when his body was beaten to jelly. It is the love I have for you, my own--a love 'beyond all words or sense'--as one of your English poets says. Do you know, with the strange irony of things, when a woman's love for a man rises to the highest point there is in it always an element of the wife? However wayward and tigerish and undomestic she may be, she then desires to be the acknowledged possession and belonging of the man, even to her own dishonour. She desires to reproduce his likeness, she wants to compass his material good. She will think of his food, and his raiment, and his well-being, and never of her own--only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when her love becomes selfless, his love will wane."