neath her curved fingers,
appeared to discover no fault. It had grown to be her habit to look at
him whenever there was an opportunity. It may be said, in truth, that
while they were together, and it was light, she looked at him all the
time.

When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a
little while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and
said: "There's something I want to read over. This:"

You would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a
soul that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like
an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you
for everything.... I shall never understand it all. I do not know
how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak
of it....

He stopped and looked at her.

"You boy!" said Mary, not very clearly.

"Oh yes," he returned. "But it's true--especially my knees!"

"You boy!" she murmured again, blushing charmingly. "You might read
another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were
looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can give
it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!'"

"I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one,
unless I have to decide to study plumbing."

"No." She shook her head. "You love and want what's beautiful and
delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and
have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful
person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful for."

Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or
two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. "Why, no," he said; "I
wanted something else more than that. I wanted you."

"And here I am!" she laughed, completely understanding. "I think we're
like those two in The Cloister and the Hearth. I'm just the rough
Burgundian cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and
told everybody that the devil was dead."

"He isn't, though," said Bibbs, as a hoarse little bell in the next room
began a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count. "He gets
into the clock whenever I'm with you." And, sighing deeply he rose to
go.

"You're always very prompt about leaving me."

"I--I try to be," he said. "It isn't easy to be careful not to risk
everything by giving myself a little more at a time. If I ever saw you
look