d me to go out
with my maid and buy just what I wished with it; and oh, we bought
everything I could think Sarah and Clementine could want, numbers and
numbers of things, and I remember I was fearfully excited when they were
sent off to Dieppe. But I never knew if I chose well or if they liked
them all quite, and now to do that does not give me nearly so much joy."

Soon they drew up at the little cafe and ordered tea, which he guessed
probably would be very bad and they would not drink. But tea was
English, and more novel than coffee for Theodora, and that she must
have, she said.

She was so gracious and sweet in the pouring of it out, when presently
it came, and the elderly waiter seemed so sympathetic, and it was all
gay and bright with the late afternoon sun streaming upon them.

"The garcon takes us for a honeymoon couple," Hector said; "he sees you
have beautiful new clothes, and that we have not yet begun to yawn with
each other."

But Theodora had not this view of honeymoons. To her a honeymoon meant a
nightmare, now happily a thing of the past, and almost forgotten.

"Do not speak of it," she said, and she put out her hands as if to ward
off an ugly sight, and Hector bent over the table and touched her
fingers gently as he said:

"Forgive me," and he raged within himself. How could he have been so
gauche, so clumsy and unlike himself. He had punished them both, and
destroyed an illusion. He meant that she should picture herself and him
as married lovers, and she had only seen--Josiah Brown. They both fell
into silence and so finished their repast.

"I want you to walk now," Hector said, "through some delicious allees
where I will show you Enceladus after he was struck by the
thunders of Zeus. You will like him, I think, and there is fine
greensward around him where we can sit awhile."

"I was always sorry for him," said Theodora; "and oh, how I would like
to go to Sicily and see AEtna and his fiery breath coming forth, and to
know when the island quakes it is the poor giant turning his weary
side!"

To go to Sicily--and with her! The picture conjured up in Hector's
imagination made him thrill again.

Then he told her about it all, he charmed her fancy and excited her
imagination, and by the time they came to their goal the feeling of jar
had departed, and the dangerous sense of attraction--of nearness--had
returned.

It was nearly seven o'clock, and here among the trees all was in a soft
gloom o