She laughed again, a trifle nervously.

“You think so?  But you do come in!  You are here with me now!”

He bent his eyes upon her with an ardour he did not attempt to conceal, and her heart leaped within her—­a warmth like fire ran swiftly through her veins.  He heard her sigh,—­he saw her tremble beneath his gaze.  There was an elf-like fascination about her child-like face and figure as she moved glidingly beside him—­a “belle dame sans merci” charm which roused the strongly amorous side of his nature.  He quickened his steps a little as he led her down a sloping path, shut in on either side by tall trees, where there was a seat placed invitingly in the deepest shadow and where the dim uplifted moon cast but the faintest glimmer, just sufficiently to make the darkness visible.

“Shall we stay here a little while?” he said, in a low tone.

She made no reply.  Something vaguely sweet and irresistible overpowered her,—­she was barely conscious of herself, or of anything, save that “Amadis de Jocelyn” was beside her.  She had lived so long in her dream of the old French knight, whose written thoughts and confessions had influenced her imagination and swayed her mind since childhood, that she could not detach herself from the idealistic conception she had formed of his character,—­and to her the sixteenth-century “Amadis” had become embodied in this modern man of brilliant but erratic genius, who, if the truth were told, had nothing idealistic about him but his art, which in itself was more the outcome of emotionalism than conviction.  He drew her gently down beside him, feeling her quiver like a leaf touched by the wind, and his own heart began to beat with a pleasurable thrill.  The silence around them seemed waiting for speech, but none came.  It was one of those tense moments on which sometimes hangs the happiness or the misery of a lifetime—­a stray thread from the web of Chance, which may be woven into a smooth pattern or knotted into a cruel tangle,—­a freakish circumstance in which the human beings most concerned are helplessly involved without any conscious premonition of impending fate.  Suddenly, yielding to a passionate impulse, he caught her close in his arms and kissed her.

“Forgive me!” he whispered—­“I could not help it!”

She put him gently back from her with two little hands that caressed rather than repulsed him, and gazed at him with startled, tender eyes in which a new and wonderful radiance shone,—­while he in self-confident audacity still held her in his embrace.

“You are not angry?” he went on, in quick, soft accents.  “No!  Why should you be?  Why should not love come to you as to other women!  Don’t analyse!—­don’t speak!  There is nothing to be said—­we know all!”