As he pressed her to him she seemed to grow less impassive and he felt her resign herself like a tired child.  He held his breath, not daring to break the spell.

At length he whispered:  “I’ve just seen such a wonderful thing—­I wish you’d been with me!”

“What sort of a thing?” She turned her head with a faint show of interest.

“A—­I don’t know—­a vision....  It came to me out there just now with the moonrise.”

“A vision?” Her interest flagged.  “I never cared much about spirits.  Mother used to try to drag me to seances—­but they always made me sleepy.”

Ralph laughed.  “I don’t mean a dead spirit but a living one!  I saw the vision of a book I mean to do.  It came to me suddenly, magnificently, swooped down on me as that big white moon swooped down on the black landscape, tore at me like a great white eagle-like the bird of Jove!  After all, imagination was the eagle that devoured Prometheus!”

She drew away abruptly, and the bright moonlight showed him the apprehension in her face.  “You’re not going to write a book here?”

He stood up and wandered away a step or two; then he turned and came back.  “Of course not here.  Wherever you want.  The main point is that it’s come to me—­no, that it’s come back to me!  For it’s all these months together, it’s all our happiness—­it’s the meaning of life that I’ve found, and it’s you, dearest, you who’ve given it to me!”

He dropped down beside her again; but she disengaged herself and he heard a little sob in her throat.

“Undine—­what’s the matter?”

“Nothing...I don’t know...I suppose I’m homesick...”

“Homesick?  You poor darling!  You’re tired of travelling?  What is it?”

“I don’t know...I don’t like Europe...it’s not what I expected, and I think it’s all too dreadfully dreary!” The words broke from her in a long wail of rebellion.

Marvell gazed at her perplexedly.  It seemed strange that such unguessed thoughts should have been stirring in the heart pressed to his.  “It’s less interesting than you expected—­or less amusing?  Is that it?”

“It’s dirty and ugly—­all the towns we’ve been to are disgustingly dirty.  I loathe the smells and the beggars.  I’m sick and tired of the stuffy rooms in the hotels.  I thought it would all be so splendid—­but New York’s ever so much nicer!”

“Not New York in July?”

“I don’t care—­there are the roof-gardens, anyway; and there are always people round.  All these places seem as if they were dead.  It’s all like some awful cemetery.”

A sense of compunction checked Marvell’s laughter.  “Don’t cry, dear—­don’t!  I see, I understand.  You’re lonely and the heat has tired you out.  It is dull here; awfully dull; I’ve been stupid not to feel it.  But we’ll start at once—­we’ll get out of it.”

She brightened instantly.  “We’ll go up to Switzerland?”