The hour was close on the dawn of a March morning.  Alvan assisted at the cloaking and hooding of Clotilde.  Her relatives were at hand; they hung by while he led her to the stairs and down into a spacious moonlight that laid the traceries of the bare tree-twigs clear-black on grass and stone.

‘A night to head the Spring!’ said Alvan.  ‘Come.’

He lifted her off the steps and set her on the ground, as one who had an established right to the privilege and she did not contest it, nor did her people, so kingly was he, arrayed in the thunder of the bolt which had struck the pair.  These things, and many things that islands know not of, are done upon continents, where perhaps traditions of the awfulness of Love remain more potent in society; or it may be, that an island atmosphere dispossesses the bolt of its promptitude to strike, or the breastplates of the islanders are strengthened to resist the bolt, or no tropical heat is there to create and launch it, or nothing is to be seen of it for the haziness, or else giants do not walk there.  But even where he walked, amid a society intellectually fostering sentiment, in a land bowing to see the simplicity of the mystery paraded, Alvan’s behaviour was passing heteroclite.  He needed to be the kingly fellow he was, crowned by another kingly fellow—­the lord of hearts—­to impose it uninterruptedly.  ‘She is mine; I have won her this night!’ his bearing said; and Clotilde’s acquiesced; and the worthy couple following them had to exhibit a copy of the same, much wondering.  Partly by habit, and of his natural astuteness, Alvan peremptorily usurped a lead that once taken could not easily be challenged, and would roll him on a good tideway strong in his own passion and his lady’s up against the last defences—­her parents.  A difficulty with them was foreseen.  What is a difficulty!—­a gate in the hunting-field:  an opponent on a platform:  a knot beneath a sword:  the dam to waters that draw from the heavens.  Not desiring it in this case—­it would have been to love the difficulty better than the woman—­he still enjoyed the bracing prospect of a resistance, if only because it was a portion of the dowry she brought him.  Good soldiers (who have won their grades) are often of a peaceful temper and would not raise an invocation to war, but a view of the enemy sets their pugnacious forces in motion, the bugle fills their veins with electrical fire, till they are as racers on the race-course.—­His inmost hearty devil was glad of a combat that pertained to his possession of her, for battle gives the savour of the passion to win, and victory dignifies a prize:  he was, however, resolved to have it, if possible, according to the regular arrangement of such encounters, formal, without snatchings, without rash violence; a victory won by personal ascendancy, reasoning eloquence.

He laughed to hear her say, in answer to a question as to her present feelings:  ‘I feel that I am carried away by a centaur!’ The comparison had been used or implied to him before.