Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/227

 ways of fortune so dark and unknowable. No self-questioning and no sting of conscience had any part in it. She had been happy, and she wanted to go on being happy; but now she was afraid she was going to be unhappy, and she shrank from unhappiness as from a toothache. I took her hand and kissed and caressed it.

"Go to bed, my dear," said I. "You'll be laughing at this in the morning. And poor Vohrenlorf is waiting all this while for me."

"Go, then. You may kiss me though."

I bent down and kissed her.

"Your lips are very hot," she said. "Yet you look cool enough."

"I am even rather cold. I must walk home briskly. Good-night."

"You'll make it up with poor Wetter?"

"Indeed our difference is over, or all but over."

"Good. I hate my friends to quarrel seriously. As for a little, it's amusing enough."

With that she let me go. The last I saw of her was as she ran hastily across the room, slammed down the window, and drew the curtain across it. She was afraid of hearing more of those voices of the night that frightened her. I thought with a smile that candles would burn about her bed till she woke to rejoice in the sun's new birth. Ah, well, I myself do not love a blank darkness.

Vohrenlorf and I walked home together. We entered by the gardens, the sentry saluting us and opening the gate. There was the Pavilion rising behind my apartments, a long, high, glass-roofed building. The sight of it recalled my thought from Coralie to the work of the morning. I nodded my head toward the building and said to Vohrenlorf: