She lay still, trembling with rapture in the close pressure of his fond arms. She felt his kisses falling softly, warmly on her face, her lips, her hair. At last she drew herself from him, saying, with rapturous wonder: "You really want me to love you, Eliot?" Half smiling at her wondering tone, he exclaimed: "What a strange question, Una! Have I not been waiting almost a year for your heart to wake from its childish sleep and respond to mine? And how else could you requite aught I have done for you? Do you not know, my darling, that love must be paid in its own coin?" Doubting, wondering, she looked up into those glorious blue-gray orbs now full of a radiant fire impossible to describe. Something of the truth dawned on her bewildered soul. She cried out impulsively: "Oh, Eliot, then you do love me? And I have been so wretched, so afraid, so--" No more, for he had caught her in his arms, crushing her passionately to his breast, whispering that he had loved her always, always, and had grown so weary, so impatient waiting to win her heart. "There was no need to wait if you had not been so blind," answered truthful Una. "For I loved you, Eliot, from the very first!" CHAPTER XXXVI. If Edith had not come upstairs to see what kept Una dressing so long, they would have forgotten all about the theater-party in their absorption of each other. As it was, they started apart in surprise when she came softly in. "Oh, Eliot, I did not know you were here," she said, drawing back. "Come in, Edith, and congratulate us," he said, drawing Una to his side again. "We have just found out that we are in love with each other." "Every one else knew that ages ago," replied the saucy girl, laughing. But she kissed both with a great amount of girlish fervor, and to hide her emotion, exclaimed: "The carriages are waiting, and Sylvie is fuming with impatience, so you had better bring your bride down-stairs, Eliot." They went down together, and when the spiteful Sylvie saw the two handsome, happy faces, she was more vexed than if Una had indeed been covered with diamonds, as she had spitefully said. She could not help seeing that a reconciliation had taken place between the two, and felt instinctively that her cruel revelation to Una had precipitated the understanding it was intended to avert. But she could not avoid one poisoned shaft of malice at the happy girl, and so, with a sneer, she exclaimed: "Dear me! Una still posing as a bride at this late day? Your wedding-day must have been a very happy one, since you love to recall it so well." No one replied to the impertinent speech, for all, even Bryant, understood its spleen. Una only shrunk closer to her husband, and they went out to the carriages that were waiting to convey them to the theater.