Of his own accord he would not have dared to risk breaking the charm by a word. But his companion--who, as is tolerably evident by this time, was Mabel French--had meanwhile formed a scheme quite worthy of her audacious temper. She had at once recognized both Mr. Morgan and Miss Rood, and had gone thus far from a mere romantic impulse, without definite intentions of any sort. But the idea now came into her head that she might take advantage of this extraordinary situation to try a match-making experiment, which instantly captivated her fancy. So she said, while ever so gently pressing his arm and looking up into his face with an arch smile (she was recognized as the best amateur actress in her set at home), "I wonder if the moon will be so mellow after we are married?" His illusion was rudely disturbed by the shock of an articulate voice, softly and low as she spoke, and he looked around with a startled expression that made her fear her role was ended. But she could not know that the eyes she turned to his were mirrors where he saw his dead youth. The two Miss Roods--the girl and the woman, the past and the present--were fused and become one in his mind. Their identity flashed upon him. An artesian well sunk from the desert surface through the underlying strata, the layers of ages, strikes some lake long ago covered over, and the water welling up converts the upper waste into a garden. Just so at her words and her look his heart suddenly filled, as if it came from afar, with the youthful passion he had felt toward Miss Bood, but which, he knew not exactly when or how, had been gradually overgrown with the dullness of familiarity and had lapsed into an indolent affectionate habit. The warm, voluptuous pulse of this new feeling--new, and yet instantly recognized as old--brought with it a flood of youthful associations, and commingled the far past with the present in a confusion more complete and more intoxicating than ever. He saw double again. "Married!" he murmured dreamily. "Yes, surely, we will be married." And as he spoke, he looked at her with such a peculiar expression that she was a little frightened. It looked like a more serious business than she had counted on, and for a moment, if she could have cut and run, perhaps she would have done so. But she had a strain of the true histrionic artist about her, and with a little effort rose to the difficulty of the role. "Of course we will be married," she replied, with an air of innocent surprise. "You speak as if you had just thought of it." He turned toward her as if he would sober his senses by staring at her, his pupils dilating and contracting in the instinctive effort to clear the mind by clearing the eyes.