The burning eyes of her Indian Bacchus fixed on her till their
brightness moistened and flashed.

Whatever was for her happiness he bowed his head to, he said. He knew
the man.

Her duty was thus performed; she had plighted herself. For the first
few days she was in dread of meeting, seeing, or hearing of Alvan.
She feared the mention of a name that rolled the world so swiftly. Her
parents had postponed their coming, she had no reason for instant alarm;
it was his violent earnestness, his imperial self-confidence that she
feared, as nervous people shrink from cannon: and neither meeting,
seeing, nor hearing of him, she began to yearn, like the child whose
curiosity is refreshed by a desire to try again the startling thing
which frightened it. Her yearning grew, the illusion of her courage
flooded back; she hoped he would present himself to claim her, marvelled
that he did not, reproached him; she could almost have scorned him for
listening to the hesitations of the despicable girl so little resembling
what she really was--a poor untried girl, anxious only on behalf of
her family to spare them a sudden shock. Remembering her generous
considerations in their interests, she thought he should have known that
the creature he called a child would have yielded upon supplication to
fly with him. Her considerateness for him too, it struck her next, was
the cause of her seeming cowardly, and the man ought to have perceived
it and put it aside. He should have seen that she could be brave, and
was a mate for him. And if his shallow experience of her wrote her down
nerveless, his love should be doing.

Was it love? Her restoration to the belief in her possessing a decided
will whispered of high achievements she could do in proof of love, had
she the freedom of a man. She would not have listened (it was quite
true) to a silly supplicating girl; she would not have allowed an
interval to yawn after the first wild wooing of her. Prince Marko loved.
Yes, that was love! It failed in no sign of the passion. She set herself
to study it in Marko, and was moved by many sentiments, numbering among
them pity, thankfulness, and the shiver of a feeling between admiration
and pathetic esteem, like that the musician has for a precious
instrument giving sweet sound when shattered. He served her faithfully,
in spite of his distaste for some of his lady's commissions. She had to
get her news of Alvan through Marko. He brought her particulars of the