Page:Lady Athlyne (IA ladyathlyne00stok).pdf/199

 "You should indeed, darling. And I never once distracted you from it did I?"

"Unhappily, no!" His eyes danced.

"So I ought to get more than a medal!"

"What? What should you get—now?" His voice was a little hoarse. He drew closer to her. She made no answer in words; but her eyes were more eloquent. With a mutual movement she was in his arms and their mouths met.

"And now for lunch!" he said as after a few entrancing seconds she drew her face away. "I am sure you must be starving."

I am hungry!" she confessed. Her face was still flushed and her eyes were like stars. She bustled about to help him. He took the seats and cushions from the tonneau and made a comfortable nest for her, with a seat for himself close, very close beside her. He lifted off the luncheon basket and unstrapped it. Whilst she took out the plates and packets and spread the cloth he put a bottle of champagne and one of fizzy water in the cool of the running stream.

They may have had some delightful picnics on Olympus in the days of the old gods who were so human and who loved so much—and so often. But surely there was none so absolutely divine as on that day that under the trees, looking over at the grey piling summits of the mountains of Carsphairn. The food was a dream, the wine was nectar. The hearts of the two young people beat as one heart. Love surely was so triumpahnttriumphant [sic] that there never could come a cloud into the sky which hung over them like a blue canopy. Life and nature and happiness and beauty and love took hands and danced around them fairylike as they sat together, losing themselves and their very souls in the depths of each other's eyes.