those evenings, when I was all alone, heaven seemed up there,
where the stars are, and I longed for wings; but now, it is _here_, and I
would only shut my wings if I had them, and not stir."

He looked at her, and took, her hands and kissed them--but reverently--as
a believer may kiss a shrine. In that moment to Flamen she was sacred; in
that moment he could no more have hurt her with passion than he could
have hurt her with a blow.

It was an emotion with him, and did not endure. But whilst it lasted, it
was true.

CHAPTER XVII.

Then he took her to dine at one of the wooden cafes under the trees.
There was a little sheet of water in front of it and a gay garden around.
There was a balcony and a wooden stairway; there were long trellised
arbors, and little white tables, and great rosebushes like her own at
home. They had an arbor all to themselves; a cool sweet-smelling bower of
green, with a glimpse of scarlet from the flowers of some twisting beans.

They had a meal, the like of which she had never seen; such a huge melon
in the centre of it, and curious wines, and coffee or cream in silver
pots, or what looked like silver to her--"just like the altar-vases in
the church," she said to herself.

"If only the Varnhart children were here!" she cried; but he did not echo
the wish.

It was just sunset. There was a golden glow on the little bit of water.
On the other side of the garden some one was playing a guitar. Under a
lime-tree some girls were swinging, crying, Higher! higher! at each toss.

In a longer avenue of trellised green, at a long table, there was a noisy
party of students and girls of the city; their laughter was mellowed by
distance as it came over the breadth of the garden, and they sang, with
fresh shrill Flemish voices, songs from an opera bouffe of La Monnaie.

It was all pretty, and gay, and pleasant.

There was everywhere about an air of light-hearted enjoyment. Bebee sat
with a wondering look in her wide-opened eyes, and all the natural
instincts of her youth, that were like curled-up fruit buds in her,
unclosed softly to the light of joy.

"Is life always like this in your Rubes' land?" she asked him; that vague
far-away country of which she never asked him anything more definite, and
which yet was so clear before her fancy.

"Yes," he made answer to her. "Only--instead of those leaves, flowers and
pomegranates; and in lieu of that tinkling guitar, a voice whose notes
are este