“I have come for my answer,” he said, taking her hand.

Claudia was looking grave.

“You know the answer,” she said.  “It must be ‘Yes.’”

Eugene drew her to him and kissed her.

“But you say ‘Yes’ as if it gave you pain.”

“So it does, in a way.”

“You don’t like being conquered even by your own prisoner?”

“It’s not that; that is, I think, rather a namby-pamby feeling.  At any rate, I don’t feel it.”

“What is it, then?  You don’t care enough for me?”

“Ah, I care too much!” she cried.  “Eugene, I wish I could have loved Father Stafford, and not you.”

“Why so?”

“I was at the very center of his life.  I don’t think I am more than on the fringe of yours.”

“A very priceless fringe to a very worthless fabric!” said he, kissing her hand.

“Yes,” she answered, with a smile, “you are perfect in that.  You might give lessons in amatory deportment.”

“Out of a full heart the mouth speaketh.”

“Ah! does it?  May not a lover be too point-de-vice in his speeches as well as in his accouterments?  Father Stafford came to me pale, yes, trembling, and with rugged words.”

“I am not the man that Stafford is—­save for my lady’s favor.”

“And you came in confidence?”

“You had let me hope.”

“You have known it for a long while.  I don’t trust you, you know, but I must.  Will you treat me as you treated Kate?”

“Slander!” cried he gayly.  “I didn’t ‘treat’ Kate.  Kate ‘treated’ me.”

“Poor fellow!”

He had sat down in a low chair close to hers, and she bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

“At least, I don’t think you’ll like any one better than you like me, and I must be content with that.”

“I have worshiped you for years.  Was ever beauty so exacting?”

“With lucid intervals?”

“Never a moment.  A sense of duty once led me astray—­dynastic considerations—­a suitable cousin.”

“Yes; and I suppose a moonlight night.”

“Pereant quae ante te! You know a little Latin?”

“I think I’d better not just now.”

“You may want it for yourself, you know, with a change of gender.  But we’ll not bandy recriminations.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Not when you began; but with me all your troubles shall end in jokes, and every tear in a smile.  Claudia, I never knew you so alarmingly serious before.”

“Well, I won’t be serious any more.  The fatal deed is done!”

“And I may say ‘Claudia’ now without fear of any one?”

“You will be able to say it for about the next fifty years.  I hope you won’t get tired of it.  Eugene, try to get tired of me last of all.”

“Never while I live!  You are a perpetual refreshment.”

“A lofty function!”

“And the spring of all my life.  Let us be happy, dear, and never mind fifty years hence.”