Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/317

 hardly seemed rational to be giving a thought to those who dwelt in spheres less halcyon. The previous evening at six o'clock they had parted for ever in this very spot. But a swift turn of Fate's shuttle had changed everything.

As now they tried to understand what had occurred, it was hard to keep from building castles. An absurd old planet might prove, after all, such a wonderful place. When you are four-and-twenty and in love, and the crooked path suddenly turns to the straight, and the future is seen through magic vistas just ahead, surprising things are apt to arise, take shape, acquire a hue, a meaning. The light that never was on sea or land is quite likely to be found south of the Marble Arch and north of Hyde Park Corner. They were on the threshold of a very wonderful world. What gifts were theirs! Health, youth, a high-hearted joy in existence, here were the keys of heaven. Life was what they chose to make it.

Poetry herself clothed them as with a garment. But not for a moment must they forget, even amid the dangerous joys of a rather wild reaction, that all might be illusion. Voices whispered from the leaves that as yet they were not out of the wood. Jack, it is true, was fain to believe that the latest act of Bridport House implied a very real change of heart. For all that, as the hour of Fate drew on, he could not stifle a miserable feeling of nervousness. And Mary, too, in spite of a proud surface gayety, felt faint within. The dream was far too good to be true.

"Of course it's a climb down," said Jack, whistling to keep up his courage. "Do you suppose Uncle Albert