Page:Indira and Other Stories.pdf/99

 This was the first time that the pair had looked upon one another in the plain light of day. Each, looking at the other, thought, "Who else is there like you? In all this wide world, with its oceans and rivers and all its pleasant places of habitation for the sons and daughters of men, is there anyone else so strong, so sweet, so delightful, so vividly alive and yet so restful, with laughter so easy and yet so becomingly reserved? Here is an old, old friend," they thought, "and yet how ravishingly new and strange! Newer and more wonderful at each moment, dear and familiar, yet unaccountably distant and formidable, treasured in the memory and yet never seen before,—a being such as I have never seen before, such as I shall never see again. Ah, happy day, ah, love's sweet miracle!"

It was the girl who spoke first—not without difficulty and embarrassment at first, for tears struggled with laughter in her charming voice.

"Must I remind you, sir", she said, "that so far you have only told me about your little