He thrilled to the warmth of it. His fingers closed upon the slimness of her wrist. Their bodies came together, separated and came together with the unevenness of the treading. She laughed softly. “It’s like a legend. It’s ever so much better than our other good times.” “I’m glad you think that.” He pressed against her. “We’ve always talked across hotel-tables and in theatres; we’ve always been going somewhere or doing something up till now. We’ve never met only to be together. It was a little vulgar, wasn’t it, buying all our pleasures with money?” “A little, and stupid when we had ourselves.” They spoke in whispers; there was no one to hear what they said. “Horace was persuading you to go away?” “Yes.” “Because of me? He was right. Are you going?” “Never.” “You ought to go. I’m--I’m glad you’re not going.” On they went, heedless of direction. At times their lips grew silent, but their hearts twittered like birds. They did not look at each other. Strange that they should be so shy after so much boldness! When one saw some new beauty to be admired, a hugging of the arm would tell it. They came to a wood--an enchanted place of maple and silver birch. The squirrel’s granary was full; there was no sound of life. It was a sylvan Pompeii frozen in its activities by the avalanche from the clouds. Trees stood stiffly, like arrested dancers, sheathed in their scabbards of burnished ice. Boughs hung heavy with snow blossoms. Scrub-oak and berries of winter-green wrought mosaics of red and brown on the silver flooring. Over all was the coffined stillness of death. Here and there a solitary leaf shone more scarlet, like the resurrection hope of a lamp kept burning in the hollow of a shrine. It was a forsaken temple of broken arches. Summer acolytes, with their flower-faces, no longer fidgeted on the altar-steps. The choir of birds had fled. The sun remained as priest and sole worshiper. Night and morning he raised the host to the wintry tinkling of crystal bells. Down a far vista, as they plunged deeper, their attention was held by a steady brightness--a pond which glowed like a stained-glass window. By its withered sedges they sat down. “It’s like---” “Yes, isn’t it?” “I was a little girl then. Meester Deek, was I a dear little girl?” “The dearest in the world. Not half so dear as you are now.” “Ah, you would say that; you’re always kind. If--if you only knew, I was much dearer then.” He was holding her hand. Slowly he unbuttoned her glove. She watched him idly. He drew it off and raised the slender fingers to his lips. “You always told me I had beautiful hands.” He kissed the fingers separately and then the palm, which was delicate as a rose-leaf. “And don’t miss the little mole on the back; mother used to say that it told her when I had been bad.”