“As if anything could make me do that!  Don’t you know—­you may not, but let me assure you, Countess—­that nothing could happen to shake me in the high opinion I have of you.  Come what may, I shall trust you, believe in you, think well of you—­always.”

“How sweet of you to say that! and now, of all times,” she murmured quite softly, and looking up for the first time, shyly, to meet his eyes.

Her hand was still on his arm, covered by his, and she nestled so close to him that it was easy, natural, indeed, for him to slip his other arm around her waist and draw her to him.

“And now—­of all times—­may I say one word more?” he whispered in her ear.  “Will you give me the right to shelter and protect you, to stand by you, share your troubles, or keep them from you—?”

“No, no, no, indeed, not now!” She looked up appealingly, the tears brimming up in her bright eyes.  “I cannot, will not accept this sacrifice.  You are only speaking out of your true-hearted chivalry.  You must not join yourself to me, you must not involve yourself—­”

He stopped her protests by the oldest and most effectual method known in such cases.  That first sweet kiss sealed the compact so quickly entered into between them.

And after that she surrendered at discretion.  There was no more hesitation or reluctance; she accepted his love as he had offered it, freely, with whole heart and soul, crept up under his sheltering wing like a storm-beaten dove reentering the nest, and there, cooing softly, “My knight—­my own true knight and lord,” yielded herself willingly and unquestioningly to his tender caresses.

Such moments snatched from the heart of pressing anxieties are made doubly sweet by their sharp contrast with a background of trouble.

CHAPTER XVI

They sat there, these two, hand locked in hand, saying little, satisfied now to be with each other and their new-found love.  The time flew by far too fast, till at last Sir Charles, with a half-laugh, suggested: 

“Do you know, dearest Countess—­”

She corrected him in a soft, low voice.

“My name is Sabine—­Charles.”

“Sabine, darling.  It is very prosaic of me, perhaps, but do you know that I am nearly starved?  I came on here at once.  I have had no breakfast.”

“Nor have I,” she answered, smiling.  “I was thinking of it when—­when you appeared like a whirlwind, and since then, events have moved so fast.”

“Are you sorry, Sabine?  Would you rather go back to—­to—­before?” She made a pretty gesture of closing his traitor lips with her small hand.

“Not for worlds.  But you soldiers—­you are terrible men!  Who can resist you?”

“Bah!  It is you who are irresistible.  But there, why not put on your jacket and let us go out to lunch somewhere—­Durand’s, Voisin’s, the Cafe de le Paix?  Which do you prefer?”