“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?”

“You are a poet, I always say, Damastor—you have so much imagination, and you play with your experiences, ask questions of them, try to find words for them. I’m a very simple person—I’m just in love with you, all of me in love. It is dream enough for me to see you, here in the shadow, or in the moonlight, or in sunlight. Just to see you, to be at your side, to feel you near!”

“Adraste, do you remember the first time we met—that is, to meet? When my mother asked me to go for the jar of water, and asked you to help me, and you came along so demurely?”

“Your mother wouldn’t ask me now to help you, would she! Do you remember that next time, when Helen brought me to your mother’s house, and your mother sent me to the other end of the garden, and so arranged it herself, without meaning to, that you came out and talked to me?”