“How exquisite!” whispered Maxine, as if a breath might break the spell.  “Look at those yellow butterflies above the flowers!  They are the only moving things.”

“It is the place of the Sleeping Beauty, sweet!  It is the place of love.”  Blake took her hands again and kissed them; then, with a gentle, enveloping tenderness, he drew her to him, looking into her face, but not attempting to touch it.

“My sweet, I have come back.  What are you going to do with me?”

She did not answer; she lay quite still within his arms, her half-closed eyes lingering on the garden—­on the white roses, the clustering mignonette, the hovering yellow butterflies.

“What are you going to do with me?”

She lifted her eyes, dewy with the beauty of the world.

“Wait!” she whispered.  “Oh, wait!”

“I have waited.”

“Ah, but a little longer!”

“But my love, my dear one—­”

She stirred in his embrace; she turned with a swift passion of entreaty, putting her fingers across his mouth.

“Ned!  Ned!  I know.  But do this great thing for me!  Shut your eyes and your ears.  Forget yesterday, think there will be no to-morrow.  Hold this one moment!  Give me my one hour!”

She pleaded as if for life, her body vibrating, her eyes beseeching him; and his answer was to press her hand harder against his lips, and to kiss it fervently.  He gave no sign of the struggle within him—­the doubt that encompassed him.  Something had been demanded of him, and he gave it loyally.

“There was no yesterday, there will be no to-morrow!” he said.  “But to-day is ours!”

It was the perfect word, spoken perfectly; Maxine’s eyes drooped in supreme content, her lips curled like a pleased child’s.

“Ah, but God is good!” she said, and with a child’s supreme sweetness, she lifted her face for his kiss.

CHAPTER XL

The hour was sped, the day past; night, with its dark wings, covered the eastern sky and, one by one, the stars came forth—­stars that gleamed like new silver in the light sharpness of the September air.

Having closed eyes to the world at the Pre Catelan, Maxine and Blake had lengthened the coil of their dream as the day waxed.  Three o’clock had seen them driving into the heart of the Bois, and late afternoon had found them wandering under the formal, interlaced trees in the gardens of the Petit Trianon.  At Versailles they dined, falling a little silent over their meal, for neither could longer hold at bay the sense that events impended—­that all paths, however devious, however touched by the enchanter’s wand, lead back by an unalterable law to the world of realities.

With an unspoken anxiety they clung to the last moment of their meal; and when coffee had been partaken of, Maxine demanded yet another cup and, resting her elbows on the table, took her face between her hands.