in
keen delight. They stopped at the window and looked out on the garden
beds, in that tranquil summer hush, all growth and bloom. He drew her
hand to his lips and spoke intemperately.

"What a fool I was to come by day!"

"Why, Osmond?"

"I wanted it to be by day, with no glamour round us, to make you judge,
accept, reject things as they are. But now I need the night to help me."
She was a picture of breathing happiness. He forgot his part. "Rose," he
cried, "it's love between us!"

"It's love," she answered.

"I came to tell you the past is past. It's not to be remembered. Not a
doubt! not a fear! not even a fear for you. You're not to love a coward.
I won't have that. Will you take me, make what you can of me?"

The light on their faces spoke without their will.

"I'm not going to mark it down," he said. "I'm not going to say it isn't
worthy of you. It's going to be, the sort the big lovers died for. I
have looked the thing in the face. I adore it. I'm going where it leads
me."

She calmed as he grew fervid.

"Sit down, Osmond," she said. "We must talk. There aren't many days to
talk in."

But as he sat, he kept her hand.

"Shall I tell you why I've been staying away from you?" he asked.

"If you want to. But I know."

"You don't know the half. I have had to conquer all sorts of fears,
chiefly for you. For me it's nothing. I'd rather have one minute of you
and lose you to-morrow than not to have had you. But for you!" A wistful
shade fell upon his face. "My own dear child!" he mused. "It must be
well for you."

"It will be well."

"It shall. It's a great adventure, Rose. It's a big challenge--the
biggest. I promise you--"

"No! no!"

"Yes. I promise you my undying faith. And I won't be a coward."

She was looking at him, smiling.

"You're a darling lover," she said. "Such pretty words!"

Then they laughed.

"This is nothing to what I can do," said Osmond. "I shall read the
poets."

He leaned to her and they kissed, like children. Tears came into his
eyes. He foresaw strange beauties he had never dreamed of. There would
be the sweet, slumbrous valleys and the sharp lightnings of fierce love,
but there would be also the homely intimacies, the foolishness of
children who, hand in hand, can smile at everything.

"Do you suppose you could tell what I am thinking?" he wondered.

The air of the playhouse seemed to be about her, and she knew.

"You are playing we are on a ship," she said.