‘Yes, you may put your arm around me, it makes me feel happy. And we’ll walk slowly, eh? so that we may not find our way again too soon.’ He had passed his arm round her waist, and it was thus that they sauntered back to the shade of the great forest trees, under whose arching vaults they slowly went, with love awakening within them. Albine said that she felt a little tired, and rested her head on Serge’s shoulder. The fabulous tree was now forgotten. They only sought to draw their faces nearer together that they might smile in one another’s eyes. And it was the trees, the maples, the elms, the oaks, with their soft green shade, that whisperingly suggested to them the first words of love. ‘I love you!’ said Serge, while his breath stirred the golden hair that clustered round Albine’s temples. He tried to think of other words, but he could only repeat, ‘I love you! I love you!’ Albine listened with a delightful smile upon her face. The music of her heart was in accord with his. ‘I love you! I love you!’ she sighed, with all the sweetness of her soft young voice. Then, lifting up her blue eyes, in which the light of love was dawning, she asked, ‘How do you love me?’ Serge reflected for a moment. The forest was wrapped in solemn quietude, the lofty naves quivered only with the soft footsteps of the young pair. ‘I love you beyond everything,’ he answered. ‘You are more beautiful than all else that I see when I open my window in the morning. When I look at you, I want nothing more. If I could have you only, I should be perfectly happy.’ She lowered her eyes, and swayed her head as if accompanying a strain of music. ‘I love you,’ he went on. ‘I know nothing about you. I know not who you are, nor whence you came. You are neither my mother nor my sister; and yet I love you to a point that I have given you my whole heart and kept nought of it for others. Listen, I love those cheeks of yours, so soft and satiny; I love your mouth with its rose-sweet breath; I love your eyes, in which I see my own love reflected; I love even your eyelashes, even those little veins which blue the whiteness of your temples. Ah! yes, I love you, I love you, Albine.’ ‘And I love you, too,’ she answered. ‘You are strong, and tall, and handsome. I love you, Serge.’ For a moment or two they remained silent, enraptured. It seemed to them that soft, flute-like music went before them, that their own words came from some dulcet orchestra which they could not see. Shorter and shorter became their steps as they leaned one towards the other, ever threading their way amidst the mighty trees. Afar off through the long vista of the colonnades were glimpses of waning sunlight, showing like a procession of white-robed maidens entering church for a betrothal ceremony amid the low strains of an organ. ‘And why do you love me?’ asked Albine again.