h other no
more."

"Not always." As she spoke, she sat down on the ground and leaned back
against a tree. He dropped down beside her, slipped his arm around her,
and drew her head to his shoulder, softly kissing her hair.

"I remember everything," she went on, "from the time you met me at the
station. I can see you now as you came toward me, and that memory is all
by itself, for nobody at the very first meeting looks the same as
afterward. There is always some subtle change--I don't know why. Do I
look the same to you now as I did then?"

"You've always been the most beautiful thing in the world to me, since
the first moment I saw you."

"No, not the first moment."

"When was it, then, darling?"

"The first night, when I came down to dinner, in that pale green satin
gown. Don't you remember?"

"As if I could ever forget!"

"And you thought I looked like a tiger-lily."

"Did I?"

"Yes, but you didn't say it and I was glad, for so many other men had
said it before."

"Perhaps it was because, past all your splendour, I saw you--the one
perfect and peerless woman God made for me and sent to me too late."

[Sidenote: Kisses]

"Not too late for the best of it, dear."

"What else do you remember?"

"Everything. I haven't forgotten a word nor a look nor a single kiss.
The strange sweet fires in your eyes, the clasp of your arms around me,
your lips on mine, the nights we've lain awake with love surging from
heart to heart and back again--it's all strung for me into a rosary of
memories that nothing can ever take away."

"That first kiss, beloved. Do you remember?"

"Yes. It was here." She stretched out her arm and with a rosy finger-tip
indicated the bare, sweet hollow of her elbow, just below the sleeve.

Lover-like, he kissed it again. "Do you love me?"

"Yes, Boy--for always."

"How much?"

"Better than everything else in the world. Do you love me?"

"Yes, with all my heart and soul and strength and will. There isn't a
fibre of me that doesn't love you."

"For always?"

"Yes, for always."

And so they chanted the lover's litany until even the afterglow had died
out of the sky. Edith released herself from his clinging arms. "We must
go," she sighed. "It's getting late."

[Sidenote: If]

He assisted her to her feet, and led her to the boat, moored in shallows
that made a murmurous singing all around it and upon the shore. He took
her hand to help her in, then paused.

"If love were all,"