She made no answer, and seemed for some time to hesitate, as if afraid or unwilling to say something which rose irrepressibly to her lips.  A few persuasive words, however, encouraged her, and she found her voice, though with a faltering accent, which greatly surprised me when I learned at last the purport of her request.

“I do not understand,” she said, “your ideas or customs, but I know they are different from ours.  I have found at least that they make you much more indulgent and tender to women than our own; and I hope, therefore, you will forgive me if I ask more than I have any right to do.”

“I could scarcely refuse my bride’s first request, whatever it might be.  But your hesitation and your apologies might make me fear that you are about to ask something which one or both of us may wish hereafter had neither been asked nor granted.”

She still hesitated and faltered, till I began to fancy that her wish must have a much graver import than I at first supposed.  Perhaps to treat the matter lightly and sportively would be the course most likely to encourage her to explain it.

“What is it, child,” I asked, “which you think the stranger of another world more likely to grant than one of your own race, and which is so extravagant, nevertheless, that you tremble to ask it even from me?  Is it too much to be bound not to appeal against me to the law, which cannot yet determine whether I am a reality or a fiction?  Or have I proved my arm a little too substantial?  Must the giant promise not to exercise the masculine prerogative of physical force safely conceded to the dwarf?  Fie, Eveena!  I am almost afraid to touch you, lest I should hurt you unawares; lest tenderness itself should transgress the limit of legal cruelty, and do grave bodily harm to a creature so much more like a fairy than a woman!”

“No, no!” she expostulated, not at all reciprocating the jesting tone in which I spoke.  “If you would consent to give such a promise, it is just one of those we should wish unmade.  How could I ask you to promise that I may behave as ill as I please?  I dare say I shall be frightened to tears when you are angry; but I shall never wish you to retain your anger rather than vent it and forgive.  The proverb says, ‘Who punishes pardons; who hates awaits.’  No, pray do not play with me; I am so much in earnest.  I know that I don’t understand where and why your thoughts and ways are so unlike ours.  But—­but—­I thought—­I fancied—­you seemed to hold the tie between man and wife something more—­faster—­more lasting—­than—­our contract has made it.”

“Certainly!  With us it lasts for life at least; and even here, where it may be broken at pleasure, I should not have thought that, on the very bridal eve, the coldest heart could willingly look forward to its dissolution.”

She was too innocent of such a thought—­perhaps too much absorbed by her own purpose—­to catch the hint of unjust reproach.