roval of an illicit and underhand
business (what else was it, after all?) and some dim perception that
here was something he did not begin to be able to fathom--something that
perhaps no one but those two themselves could deal with--between these
various extremes he was lost indeed. And he stammered out:

"I must ask your aunt; she's--she's not very good on a mule."

Then, in an impulse of sheer affection, he said with startling
suddenness: "My dear, I've often meant to ask, are you happy at home?"

"At home?"

There was something sinister about the way she repeated that, as if the
word "home" were strange to her.

She drank her coffee and got up; and the Colonel felt afraid of her,
standing there--afraid of what she was going to tell him. He grew very
red. But, worse than all, she said absolutely nothing; only shrugged her
shoulders with a little smile that went to his heart.

VI

On the wild thyme, under the olives below the rock village of Gorbio,
with their mules cropping at a little distance, those two sat after
their lunch, listening to the cuckoos. Since their uncanny chance
meeting that morning in the gardens, when they sat with their hands just
touching, amazed and elated by their own good fortune, there was not
much need to say what they felt, to break with words this rapture of
belonging to each other--so shyly, so wildly, so, as it were, without
reality. They were like epicures with old wine in their glasses, not yet
tired of its fragrance and the spell of anticipation.

And so their talk was not of love, but, in that pathetic way of
star-crossed lovers, of the things they loved; leaving out--each other.

It was the telling of her dream that brought the words from him at last;
but she drew away, and answered:

"It can't--it mustn't be!"

Then he just clung to her hand; and presently, seeing that her eyes were
wet, took courage enough to kiss her cheek.

Trembling and fugitive indeed that first passage of their love. Not much
of the conquering male in him, nor in her of the ordinary enchantress.

And then they went, outwardly sober enough, riding their mules down the
stony slopes back to Mentone.

But in the grey, dusty railway-carriage when she had left him, he was
like a man drugged, staring at where she had sat opposite.

Two hours later, at dinner in her hotel, between her and Mrs. Ercott,
with the Colonel opposite, he knew for the first time what he was faced
with. To watch every th