the first serving of his lady with no matter what
triviality of meat or bread, or water or wine? The points of the affair
are so slight and yet so tremendous; for are they not sacramental--a
typifying of things unspeakable?

No intimate word was spoken, but at such times looks speak--more
poignantly still, hearts speak; and their gay voices, as they laughed
and talked and laughed again, held notes that the ear of the waiter
never caught, and their silences vibrated with meaning.

At last the meal was over; they rose and by one consent looked toward
the spacious world outside.

"Shall we go into the gardens?"

Blake put the question; Maxine silently bent her head.

Softly and assiduously their sleek waiter bowed them to the door, and
they passed down the shallow steps into the slim shadows of the trees as
they might have passed into some paradise fashioned for their special
pleasure.

It was a place--an hour--removed from the mundane world; passing out of
the region of the trees, they came upon a shrubbery--a shrubbery that
enclosed a lawn and flower-beds, and here, by grace of the gods, was a
seat where they sat down side by side and gave their eyes to the beauty
that encompassed them.

It was an exotic beauty, yet a beauty of intense suggestion. Summer lay
lavishly displayed in the shaven lawn, the burdened shrubs, the glory of
flowers, but over her redundant loveliness autumn had spun an ethereal
garment. No words could paint the subtlety of this sheath; it was
neither mist nor shadow, it was a golden transparency spun from nature's
loom--the bridal veil of the young season.

"How exquisite!" whispered Maxine, as if a breath might break the
spell. "Look at those yellow butterflies above the flowers! They are the
only moving things."

"It is the place of the Sleeping Beauty, sweet! It is the place of
love." Blake took her hands again and kissed them; then, with a gentle,
enveloping tenderness, he drew her to him, looking into her face, but
not attempting to touch it.

"My sweet, I have come back. What are you going to do with me?"

She did not answer; she lay quite still within his arms, her half-closed
eyes lingering on the garden--on the white roses, the clustering
mignonette, the hovering yellow butterflies.

"What are you going to do with me?"

She lifted her eyes, dewy with the beauty of the world.

"Wait!" she whispered. "Oh, wait!"

"I have waited."

"Ah, but a little longer!"

"But my lo