I love you."

"I love you, Pierre."

Then the wind spoke for them, using the trees for a harp above them.
She looked up to him, and saw the nodding branches above his head, and
higher still, the cold and changeless radiance of the stars. He bent
back her head and stared so grimly down into her eyes that her smile
ceased tremulously.

"Mary, what is the perfume?"

"None, except the scent of the pines and the sweet, cold air of the
night, Pierre."

"There is something more. It's as if the wind had taken all the
fragrance from a thousand miles of wild flowers, and brought them
blended and faint and sweeter than anything else in the world. It is
you, Mary, you are so beautiful. How many men have told you that you
are beautiful?"

"None have told me; at least I've listened to them with only half my
heart."

"What have they told you?"

"Nothing, except words about eyes and lips, and things like that."

"And your hair?"

"Oh, yes, they never forget that."

"Then there is nothing left for me to say, except that God made you so
that I could love you with all my heart. And while I hold you here and
hunt for things to say, my mind goes rushing out to great things--the
sea, the mountains, the wind, the cold, quiet, beautiful stars. But
you are unhappy to hear me. Look! The big tears come one by one in
your eyes, and roll down your face."

"I'm so happy, Pierre, that I cannot help but be sad a little."

"But never after this. We will always be happy."

"Always and always."

"Mary, I have ridden all day over a burning hot desert and come under
the mountains at night and looked up, and I've seen the white, pure
snow with the blue of the sky behind it. You are like that to me. But
you will be cold out here; I musn't go on saying nothings like this."

"I love it, Pierre. I won't have you stop."

"Sit here on this stump--now, I'll sit at your feet."

"No, beside me, please, Pierre."

"I will not move. Give me your hands. Now, when I look up your face
is framed by a tree-top that goes nodding from one side to the other,
and I look up at your eyes and past them at the stars until I know that
our love is like them, and free as the wind. Mary, my dearest, your
cold hand that I kiss is more to me than oceans of silver, or mountains
of gold."

"Now, if we could both die, this would never end. But it will never
end in spite of to-morrow, will it? You will go back home with me."

"Go home with you?"