"To tell the truth I was half-afraid to come," he answers; "I was very rude to you this morning, and I knew you had reason to resent it, and expected you would. You remember you were wont to give me a piece of your mind very often in the days 'when we were first acquainted.'" "Yes, but things are changed, you know," she returns, gently. Reine is changed too. The thought flashes over him suddenly as he looks at her keenly, taking advantage of her momentary obliviousness of his presence. She has folded her very small and slender white hands across the book in her lap, and is gazing a little dreamily out to sea. The dark eyes are not so free and glad as they were of old. They have grown larger and vaguely sad, the peachy cheek, rounded daintily like a child's, is pale to-day, the crimson lips have a slight, pathetic droop. Something in the softened loveliness of the brilliant face goes to his heart like a wordless reproach. For a moment he regrets the arch, daring, sparkling face that used to flash defiance at him and his opinions. "You are changed, too, Reine," he says, unconsciously putting his thought into words. "You used to scold me when I was naughty. I hope you are not afraid of me now because you are my wife?" A great wave of color surges into her cheek at his words. She turns on him the half-shy gaze of the frank, dark eyes. "Afraid of you--oh, no, it is not that," she says. "But you disliked my wild ways so much that I have tried to be more what you wished me, more dignified, more gentle." He looks at her with a half question in his blue eyes, a flush on his handsome face. "Like Maud," she explains, further. "Like Maud--why, really," he begins, with supreme anger and sarcasm, but she interrupts him, somewhat incoherently: "I thought--I was told, I mean that--that I was to stay with Uncle Langton a year, and be formed over into a woman like Maud." His blue eyes darken with shame and anger. "So you have heard _that_!" he says, with self-contempt. "I was a fool, a dolt. Give over the attempt, Reine. You can never be like Maud any more than--than a rose is like a lily!" "So I thought," she answers, visibly abashed. "Maud is so grand, and white, and queenly, and I am so little, and dark, and ugly." "That is not true," he answers, hastily. "You are beautiful, Reine. I am sure you know _that_. You are like a beautiful 'queen-rose,' all sweetness, color and dew, 'set round with little willful thorns.' Maud is like a grand white calla lily, beautiful, but devoid of sweetness and perfume." "The lily is the most beautiful of all flowers," the girl answers, sighing. "But the rose is the emblem of love," he replies, smiling as the swift color floods her cheeks. She has no answer ready, and he goes on with some embarrassment: "Do not try to be like Maud, Reine. Though so beautiful and stately, she was mercenary and treacherous. Perhaps a less perfect manner is preferable with a heart free from guile. Do you not think so?"