ed the
Wedding March to a triumphant end. Then quiet descended, and there came a
long pause.

Chris broke it at last, moved, and shyly spoke. "Trevor!"

"What is it, dear?"

She drew slightly towards him, and at once he put a quiet arm about her.
"I want to tell you something," she said.

"Something serious?" he questioned.

"I--I don't know." A faint note of distress sounded in her voice. She
laid her cheek suddenly against his shoulder with a very confiding
gesture. "I'm not quite happy," she said.

He held her closer. "Tell me, Chris!" he said very tenderly.

She uttered a little laugh that had a sob in it. "It's only that--that I
can't help feeling that you're making rather a bad bargain. You know, the
other day--when--when you proposed to me--I didn't have time to think.
I've been thinking since."

"Yes?" he said.

"Yes. And now and then--only now and then--I feel rather bad. I--I like
fair play, Trevor. It isn't right for me to take so much and give--so
little." Her voice quivered perceptibly, and she ceased to speak. He
pressed her closer to him, but he remained silent for several seconds.

At last, "Chris," he said, "will it comfort you to know that what you
call a little is to me the greatest thing on earth?"

His voice was deep and very quiet, yet a tremor went through her at his
words.

"That's just what frightens me," she said.

"It shouldn't frighten you," he said. "It need not."

"But it does," said Chris.

He was silent for another space, still holding her closely. In the room
behind them they could hear the cousins talking; but they were alone
together, shut off, as it were, from ordinary converse, alone under the
stars.

"Suppose," said Mordaunt gently, "you leave off thinking for a bit, and
take things as they come."

"Yes?" she said rather dubiously.

He bent down to her. "Chris, I will never ask more of you than you are
able to give."

She moved at that in her quick, impulsive way, reached up and clasped his
neck. "Oh, Trevor, I do love you!" she said, with a catch in her voice.
"I do want you to have--the best!"

Her face was raised to his. For the first time she offered him her lips.
They were nearer to understanding each other at that moment than they had
ever been before.

But as he bent lower to kiss her the notes of the piano floated out to
them again, this time in a soft melody, inexpressibly sweet, full of a
subtle charm, the fairy gold of romance.

She kissed h