of the delicacy which is the sign-manual of the things
that endure. In the beginning of that honeymoon there was a beautiful
restraint which was surely of good augury for the future. Not all
the doors were set violently open, not all the rooms were ruthlessly
visited.

Dion found that he was able to reverence the woman who had given herself
to him more after he had received the gift than before. And this was
very wonderful to him, was even, somehow, perplexing. For Rosamund
had the royal way of bestowing. She was capable of refusal, but not of
half-measures or of niggardliness. There was something primitive in
her which spoke truth with a voice that was fearless; and yet that
very primitiveness seemed closely allied with her purity. Dion only
understood what that purity was when he was married to her. It was like
the radiant atmosphere of Greece to him. Had not Greece led him to it,
made him desire it with all that was best in his nature? Now he had
brought it to Greece. Actually, day after day, he trod the Acropolis
with Rosamund.

Greece had already, he believed, put out a hand and drawn them more
closely together.

"Love me, love the land I love."

Laughingly, yet half-anxiously too, Dion had said that to Rosamund when
they left Brindisi and set sail for Greece. With her usual sincerity she
had answered:

"I want to love it. Do you wish me to say more than that, to make
promises I may not be able to keep?"

"No," he had answered. "I only want truth from you." And after a moment
he had added, "I shall never want anything from you but your truth."

She had looked at him rather strangely, like one moved by conflicting
feelings, and after a slight hesitation she had said:

"Dion, do you realize all the meaning in those words of yours?"

"Of course I do."

"Then if you really mean them you must be one of the most daring of
human beings. But I shall try a compromise with you. I shall try to give
you my best truth, never my worst. You deserve that, I think. Indeed, I
know you do."

And he had left it to her. Was he not wise to do that? Already he
trusted her absolutely, as he had never thought to trust any one.

"I could face any storm with you," he once said to Rosamund.

Rosamund had wanted to love Greece, and from the first moment of seeing
the land she had loved it.

In the beginning of their stay she had scarcely been able to believe
that she was really in Athens. A great name had aroused in her
imag