too beautiful."

"Oh!" screamed Jenny. "Oh! She moved. She moved."

"Don't be foolish, child. You're excited."

"I must go to the theater. It's late. I do feel silly."

"I'll drive you down."

"But I'll come again," she said. "Only next time we'll light the gas
when it gets dark. I hate these statues. They're like skelingtons."

"I'm going to make a statue of you. May I? Dancing?"

"If you like."

"I adore you."

"So do I you," said Jenny.

"Not so much as I do."

"Just as much, Mr. Knowall," she said, shaking her head.

They kissed once more.

"Jenny, Jenny!" It was almost a poignant cry. "Jenny, I wish this moment
were a thousand years. But never mind, we shall always be lovers."

"I hope we shall."

"Why only hope? We shall. We must."

"You never know," she whispered. "Men are funny; you never know."

"Don't you trust me?"

"I trust nobody. Yes, I do. I trust you."

"My darling, darling!"

Then downstairs they went, closer locked on every step, close together
with hearts beating, the world before them, and the stars winking
overhead.

Chapter XVI: _Loves Halcyon_

The next fortnight passed quickly enough in the rapture of daily
meetings and kisses still fresh and surprising as those first primroses
of spring which few can keep from plucking. There was nobody to
interrupt the intimacy; for Irene remained ill, and the rest of the
world was as yet unconscious of the affair. Nevertheless, with all these
opportunities for a complete understanding, the relation of Maurice and
Jenny to one another was still essentially undefined. Their manner of
life in that first fortnight of mutual adoration had the exquisite and
ephemeral beauty of a daylong flower. It possessed the elusive joy that
mayflies have in dancing for a few sunny days above a glittering stream.
It had the character of a pleasant dream, where thought is instantly
translated into action. It was the opening of a poem by Herrick or
Horace before the prescience of transitoriness has marred the exultation
with melancholy.

Everything favored a halcyon love. October had come in, windless and
very golden. Such universal serenity was bound to preserve for lovers
the illusion of permanence that exists so poignantly in fine autumn
weather, when the leaves, falling one by one at rare intervals, scarcely
express the year's decay. The sly hours stole onward in furtive
disguises. Milk-white dawns evaporated in skies of thinnest azure and