long as I live, give you one
moment's--displeasure." He was going to say "pain," but he dared
not.

Still she was silent, her idle white fingers clasped in her lap,
her eyes fixed on the river. Little by little the colour deepened
in her cheeks. It was when she felt them burning that she spoke,
nervously, scarcely comprehending her own words: "I--I also was
unhappy--I was silly; we both are very silly--don't you think so?
We are such good friends that it seems absurd to quarrel as we have.
I have forgotten everything that was unpleasant--it was so little
that I could not remember if I tried! Could you? I am very happy
now; I am going to listen while you amuse me with stories." She
curled up against a tree and smiled at him--at the love in his eyes
which she dared not read, which she dared not acknowledge to herself.
It was there, plain enough for a wilful maid to see; it burned under
his sun-tanned cheeks, it softened the firm lips. A thrill of
contentment passed through her. She was satisfied; the world was
kind again.

He lay at her feet, pulling blades of grass from the bank and
idly biting the whitened stems. The voice of the Lisse was in his
ears, he breathed the sweet wood perfume and he saw the sunlight
wrinkle and crinkle the surface ripples where the water washed
through the sedges, and the long grasses quivered and bent with
the glittering current.

"Tell you stories?" he asked again.

"Yes--stories that never have really happened--but that should
have happened."

"Then listen! There was once--many, many years ago--a maid and a
man--"

Good gracious--but that story is as old as life itself! He did
not realize it, nor did she. It seemed new to them.

The sun of noon was moving towards the west when they remembered
that they were hungry.

"You shall come home and lunch with me; will you? Perhaps papa
may be there, too," she said. This hope, always renewed with
every dawn, always fading with the night, lived eternal in her
breast--this hope, that one day she should have her father to
herself.

"Will you come?" she asked, shyly.

"Yes. Do you know it will be our first luncheon together?"

"Oh, but you brought me an ice at the dance that evening; don't
you remember?"

"Yes, but that was not a supper--I mean a luncheon together--with
a table between us and--you know what I mean."

"I don't," she said, smiling dreamily; so he knew that she did.

They hurried a little on the way to the Chateau, a