He gave the order to his chauffeur, and then he turned to her.

“I, too, want to prolong it all,” he said, “and I want to make you happy—­always.”

“It is only lately that I have begun to think about things,” she said, softly—­“about happiness, I mean, and its possibilities and impossibilities.  I think before my marriage I must have been half asleep, and very young.”

And Hector thought, “You are still, but I shall awake you.”

“You see,” she continued, “I had never read any novels, or books about life until Jean d’Agreve.  And now I wonder sometimes if it is possible to be really happy—­really, really happy?”

“I know it is,” he said; “but only in one way.”

She did not dare to ask in what way.  She looked down and clasped her hands.

“I once thought,” she went on, hurriedly, “that I was perfectly happy the first time Josiah gave me two thousand francs, and told me to go out with my maid and buy just what I wished with it; and oh, we bought everything I could think Sarah and Clementine could want, numbers and numbers of things, and I remember I was fearfully excited when they were sent off to Dieppe.  But I never knew if I chose well or if they liked them all quite, and now to do that does not give me nearly so much joy.”

Soon they drew up at the little cafe and ordered tea, which he guessed probably would be very bad and they would not drink.  But tea was English, and more novel than coffee for Theodora, and that she must have, she said.

She was so gracious and sweet in the pouring of it out, when presently it came, and the elderly waiter seemed so sympathetic, and it was all gay and bright with the late afternoon sun streaming upon them.

“The garcon takes us for a honeymoon couple,” Hector said; “he sees you have beautiful new clothes, and that we have not yet begun to yawn with each other.”

But Theodora had not this view of honeymoons.  To her a honeymoon meant a nightmare, now happily a thing of the past, and almost forgotten.

“Do not speak of it,” she said, and she put out her hands as if to ward off an ugly sight, and Hector bent over the table and touched her fingers gently as he said: 

“Forgive me,” and he raged within himself.  How could he have been so gauche, so clumsy and unlike himself.  He had punished them both, and destroyed an illusion.  He meant that she should picture herself and him as married lovers, and she had only seen—­Josiah Brown.  They both fell into silence and so finished their repast.

“I want you to walk now,” Hector said, “through some delicious allees where I will show you Enceladus after he was struck by the thunders of Zeus.  You will like him, I think, and there is fine greensward around him where we can sit awhile.”

“I was always sorry for him,” said Theodora; “and oh, how I would like to go to Sicily and see AEtna and his fiery breath coming forth, and to know when the island quakes it is the poor giant turning his weary side!”