“My sweet, my sweet,” he murmured, kissing her hair.

“And the time you came, when I was so ugly,” she went on, “and so overgrown—­I was sad then, because I knew you would not like me.  But the winds and the night were good to me.  I have grown, you see, so that I am now more as you would wish, but everything has been for you from that first day in the tree—­our tree.”

That between two lovers the thing could be a game never entered her brain.  The thought that it might be wiser to watch moods and play on this one or that, and conceal her feelings and draw him on with mystery, could meet with no faintest understanding in her fond heart.

She just loved him, and belonged to him, and that was the whole meaning of heaven and earth.  Any trick of calculation would have been a thousand miles beneath her feet.  And while he was there with her, clasping her slender willowy form to his heart, John Derringham felt exalted.  The importance of his career dwindled, the imperative necessity of possessing Halcyone for his very own augmented, until at last he whispered in her ear as her little head lay there upon his breast: 

“Darling child, you must marry me at once—­immediately—­next week.  We will go through whatever is necessary at the registry-office, and then you must come away with me and be my very own.”

“Of course,” was all she said.

“It is absolutely impossible that we could let anyone know about it at present—­even Cheiron—­” he went on, a little hurriedly.  “The circumstances are such that I cannot publicly own you as my wife, although it would be my glory so to do.  I should have to give up my whole career, because I have no money to keep a splendid home, which would be your due.  But I dare say these things do not matter to you any more than they do to me.  Is it so, sweet, darling child?”

“How could they matter?” Halcyone whispered from the shelter of his clasped arms.  “Of what good would they be to me?  I want to be with you when you have time; I want to caress you when you are tired, and comfort you, and inspire you, and love you, and bring you peace.  How could the world—­which I do not know—­matter to me?  Are you not foolish to ask me such questions, John!”

“Very foolish, my divine one,” he said, and forgot what more he would have spoken in the delirium of a worshiping kiss.

But presently he brought himself back to facts again.

“Darling,” he said, “I will find out exactly how everything can be managed, and then you will meet me here, under this tree, and we will go away together and be married, and for a week at least I will make the time to stay with you, as your lover, and you shall be absolutely and truly my sweetest wife.”

“Yes,” said Halcyone, perfectly content.

“And after that,” he went on, “I will arrange that you stay somewhere near me, so that every moment that I am free I can come back to the loving glory of your arms.”