Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/60

48 this beautiful prospect. One has no such view from the Queen's end of the terrace. One cannot see the moon."

"I cannot see the moon from where I am standing," said he.

"No because you have turned your back upon it," said she.

"I have chosen between two visions. If you were to authorise me to join you, aloft there, I could see both."

"I have no power to authorise you," she laughed, "the terrace is not my property. But if you choose to take the risks"

"Oh," he cried, "you are good, you are kind." And in an instant he had joined her on the terrace, and his heart was fluttering wildly with its sense of her nearness to him. He could not speak.

"Well, now you can see the moon. Is it all your fancy painted?" she asked, with her whimsical smile. Her face was exquisitely pale in the moonlight, her eyes glowed. Her voice was very soft.

His heart was fluttering wildly, poignantly. "Oh," he beganbut broke off. His breath trembled. "I cannot speak," he said.

She arched her eyebrows. "Then we have made some mistake. This will never be you, in that case."

"Oh, yes, it is I. It is the other fellow, the gabbler, who is not myself," he contrived to tell her.

"You lead a double life, like the villain in the play?" she suggested.

"You must have your laugh at my expense; have it, and welcome. But I know what I know," he said.

"What do you know?" she asked quickly.

"I know that I am in love with you," he answered.

"Oh, only that," she said, with an air of relief.

"Only that. But that is a great deal. I know that I love you — oh, yes, unutterably. If you could see yourself! You are Rh