Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/321

 you. But now I begin to find that it is even better to love than to be loved. Besides, yesterday"—

"Well?" said I encouragingly and interrogatively.

"I am almost ashamed to tell it. But, as I was going away with those sketches, I happened to see you, in a mirror, talking gayly with Udene Vadarna. She is very pretty," she continued apologetically, "and, I know, admires you. Then I felt a miserable feeling I had never known before, and knew that I must love you, since I could not bear the thought of your caring too much for another."

In return for this sweet confession, I told how, on almost the same spot, I had become aware of my love on experiencing that same miserable feeling while watching Anvar Siured await her coming forth. This we both, of course, regarded as a remarkable coincidence, and found multitudes of similar confidences to impart. So many, indeed, did we find, that the hours sped on unheeded, till, to Reva's confusion, her father came forth to call us to luncheon, much as Reva had been accustomed to summon himself and me when we had been too engrossed with our task to come forth unwarned. Hulmar had now set vigorously to work to arrange the mass of material with which I had helped to provide him.

Thus, too, the days sped on till there wanted but about ten days till Olay and Ialma's marriage-day. In that first sweet interchange of mutual confidences, Edith Alston had, in sooth, been altogether lost sight of. Happy love is apt to be engrossed with the blissful prescut. But, during our succeeding talks, Edith formed an apparently exhaustless topic for Reva's questioning.