“I love you more, Adraste, oh, so much more! Don’t you feel it, how much I love you? Do we need words?”

“I like you to tell me, Damastor; nobody could tell it as you can. When you first told me you loved me, I shall never forget how you told me!”

“Adraste, I don’t recall a single word. What I remember is the silence afterwards. I was so afraid there might be some one else you cared for already, and you managed to let me know there was some one and just as I felt ready to die, I found out I was the one, after all.”

“Yes, you found out! But I had to tell you.”

“You had to tell me! I like that. We just looked at each other and said nothing. I never was so happy in my life: I shall never be so happy again.”

“Oh, I shall, Damastor. I didn’t enjoy that silence a bit. I knew you cared, you innocent child, and I had to wait while you wrestled with the idea; and it wasn’t news to me, whatever it was to you, that you had my heart. Really I was annoyed at you, just standing there paralysed with your great discovery, and not knowing what to do next.”

“If I was struck dumb, Adraste, it was with happiness … And then I asked you for just one kiss, don’t you remember?”

“I do; that was the precise number you asked for.”

“But you let me take more than one, Adraste. I didn’t know what kisses were.”

“They frightened you a little, poor Damastor, didn’t they? You seemed to think there were only so many kisses in the world, and if we took them all that day, there would never be any others. We had better save them up a little, you said. We promised to wait a long, long time for each other.”

“How young it seems! We were both so young, Adraste!”

“Yes, is was several months ago. And now we are—what, dear lover?—middle-aged? At least so old that I grow retrospective, and sentimental, and I ask you to say again you love me, as you did when I was young.”

“I ought to be a poet, Adraste, to say—”

“But you are, dear lover!”

“Ah, no! If I were, I might put a heart-ache into words. It is a heart-ache, isn’t it! I wonder what brings it on—why happiness, I mean, should bring something so close to pain. I can’t lay hold of my love, Adraste—I can’t really touch you. My hand on your little fingers, on your soft cheeks, smooth and cool, all your softness in my arms—but you escape me, you whom I really love. Here in the shadow you are more real than sometimes when I see you in the broad day. Having you beside me, and listening to your voice, I can believe in the joy that surrounds me; sometimes in daylight I think it must be only a dream. I look at you and try to remember all that has happened, and I can’t believe it. But I can recall your appearance as it was long ago—in memory or in a dream the picture of our love is clear, but often the actual moment seems illusion. Is it that way with you, Adraste?”