Whatever _did_ follow caused the girl to murmur: "This is the lover I love; this is the lover I have been waiting for in my castle of romance. I am glad that I have lost all worldly things; I am glad, glad! When did you first learn that you loved me?"
(Old, very old; thousands of years old, and will grow to be many thousand years older. But from woman"s lips it is the sweetest question man ever heard.)
"At the _Gare du Nord_, in Paris; the first time I saw you."
"And you followed me across the ocean?"--wonderingly.
"And when did you first learn that you loved me?" he asked.
(Oh, the trite phrases of lovers" litany.)
"When I saw you in the police-court. Mercy! what a scandal! I am to marry my butler!"
_Jane:_ They are laughing!
_d.i.c.k:_ That is better than weeping. Besides, they will probably walk us home. (Wise animal!)
He was not only wise but prophetic. The lovers _did_ walk the horses home. Hand in hand they came back along the road, through the flame and flush of the ripening year. The G.o.d of light burned in the far west, blending the brown earth with his crimson radiance, while the purple shadows of the approaching dusk grew larger and larger. The man turned.
"What a beautiful world it is!" he said.
"I begin to find it so," replied the girl, looking not at the world, but at him.
THE END