d when the trees move all
together...you chase him away, my lover!"

It was like a break in music, the way that Emilia suddenly closed her
sentence; coming with a shock of flattering surprise upon Wilfrid.

Then she pursued: "My English lover! I am like Italy, in chains to that
German, and you...but no, no, no! It's not quite a likeness, for my
German is not a brute. I have seen his picture in shop-windows: the wind
seemed in his hair, and he seemed to hear with his eyes: his forehead
frowning so. Look at me, and see. So!"

Emilia pressed up the hair from her temples and bent her brows.

"It does not increase your beauty," said Wilfrid.

"There's the difference!" Emilia sighed mildly. "He sees angels, cherubs,
and fairies, and imps, and devils; or he hears them: they come before him
from far off, in music. They do to me, now and then. Only now and then,
when my head's on fire.--My lover!"

Wilfrid pressed his mouth to the sweet instrument. She took his kiss
fully, and gave her own frankly, in return. Then, sighing a very little,
she said: "Do not kiss me much."

"Why not?"

"No!"

"But, look at me."

"I will look at you. Only take my hand. See the moon is getting whiter.
The water there is like a pool of snakes, and then they struggle out, and
roll over and over, and stream on lengthwise. I can see their long flat
heads, and their eyes: almost their skins. No, my lover! do not kiss me.
I lose my peace."

Wilfrid was not willing to relinquish his advantage, and the tender deep
tone of the remonstrance was most musical and catching. What if he pulled
her to earth from that rival of his in her soul? She would then be wholly
his own. His lover's sentiment had grown rageingly jealous of the lordly
German. But Emilia said, "I have you on my heart more when I touch your
hand only, and think. If you kiss me, I go into a cloud, and lose your
face in my mind."

"Yes, yes;" replied Wilfrid, pleased to sustain the argument for the sake
of its fruitful promises. "But you must submit to be kissed, my darling.
You will have to."

She gazed inquiringly.

"When you are married, I mean."

"When will you marry me?" she said.

The heir-apparent of the house of Pole blinked probably at that moment
more foolishly than most mortal men have done. Taming his astonishment to
represent a smile, he remarked: "When? are you thinking about it
already?"

She answered, in a quiet voice that conveyed the fact forcibly, "Yes."