‘No!’ said he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, ’no more of the quadruped man!  You tempt him—­may I tell you that?  Why, now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph?  One leap and a gallop, and we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, parents and friends to run about for the wits they lose in running.  But no!  No more scandals.  That silver moon invites us by its very spell of bright serenity, to be mad:  just as, when you drink of a reverie, the more prolonged it is the greater the readiness for wild delirium at the end of the draught.  But no!’ his voice deepened—­’the handsome face of the orb that lights us would be well enough were it only a gallop between us two.  Dearest, the orb that lights us two for a lifetime must be taken all round, and I have been on the wrong side of the moon.

I have seen the other face of it—­a visage scored with regrets, dead dreams, burnt passions, bald illusions, and the like, the like!—­sunless, waterless, without a flower!  It is the old volcano land:  it grows one bitter herb:  if ever you see my mouth distorted you will know I am revolving a taste of it; and as I need the antidote you give, I will not be the centaur to win you, for that is the land where he stables himself; yes, there he ends his course, and that is the herb he finishes by pasturing on.  You have no dislike of metaphors and parables?  We Jews are a parable people.’

‘I am sure I do understand . . .’ said Clotilde, catching her breath to be conscientious, lest he should ask her for an elucidation.

’Provided always that the metaphor be not like the metaphysician’s treatise on Nature:  a torch to see the sunrise!—­You were going to add?’

’I was going to say, I think I understand, but you run away with me still.’

‘May the sensation never quit you!’

‘It will not.’

‘What a night!’ Alvan raised his head:  ’A night cast for our first meeting and betrothing!  You are near home?’

‘The third house yonder in the moonlight.’

‘The moonlight lays a white hand on it!’

‘That is my window sparkling.’

‘That is the vestal’s cresset.  Shall I blow it out?’

‘You are too far.  And it is a celestial flame, sir!’

’Celestial in truth!  My hope of heaven!  Dian’s crescent will be ever on that house for me, Clotilde.  I would it were leagues distant, or the door not forbidden!’

‘I could minister to a good knight humbly.’

Alvan bent to her, on a sudden prompting: 

‘When do father and mother arrive?’

‘To-morrow.’

He took her hand.  ‘To-morrow, then!  The worst of omens is delay.’

Clotilde faintly gasped.  Could he mean it?—­he of so evil a name in her family and circle!

Her playfulness and pleasure in the game of courtliness forsook her.