‘As through a glass, darkly, you mean?’ he said, half grave, half laughing. The girl took both his hands and pressed them silently for a moment. ‘When you know me as I know you,’ she whispered softly, ‘then—we shall know one another—see one another—face to face. But even now, in these few minutes, you have come to know me better than you ever did before. And that is something, isn’t it?’ She moved quite close, passing her hands down his bronzed cheeks and shaking his head playfully as one might do to a loved child. ‘You take my breath away!’ gasped the delighted man, too bewildered in his new happiness to let the strangeness of her words perplex him long. ‘But, tell me again,’ he added, slowly releasing himself, ‘how it is that you know me so well? Tell me again and again!’ She replied demurely, standing before him like a teacher before a backward pupil. ‘Because I have always watched, studied, and loved you—from within yourself. It was not my fault that you failed to know me when I spoke. Perhaps, even now, you would not have found me unless—in certain ways—through the children—you had begun to come into your own——’ Paul interrupted her, taking her in his arms, while she made no effort to escape, but only laughed. ‘And I’ll take good care I never lose you again after this!’ he cried. ‘You know, I wasn’t really asleep just now on the sand,’ she told him a little later. ‘I heard you coming all the time; only I wanted to see if you would pass me by as you always did before.’ ‘It’s very odd and very wonderful,’ he said, ‘but I never noticed you till to-day.’ ‘And very natural,’ she added under her breath, so low that he did not hear. And Paul, moving beside her, murmured in his beard, ‘If she’s not my Ideal, set mysteriously somehow into the framework of one I already love—I swear I don’t know who she is!’ They made their way along the sandy shores of the river, the waves breaking at their feet, the wind singing among the reeds; never had the sunlight seemed so brilliant, the day so wonderful and kind. All nature helped them; playing their great game as if it was the only game worth playing in the whole world—the game loved from one eternity to another. ‘So the children have told you about me, have they?’ he whispered into the ear that came just level with his lips. ‘And all you love, as well. Your dreams and thoughts more than anything else—especially your thoughts. You must be very careful with those; they mould me; they make me what I am. If you didn’t think nicely of me—verynicelyindeed——’ ‘But I shall always think nicely, beautifully, of you,’ he broke in eagerly, not noticing the familiar touch of language. ‘You have so far, at any rate,’ she replied, ‘for the yearning and desire of your imagination have created me afresh.’ And he discerned the smile upon her veiled face as one may see the sun only through troubled glass, yet know its warmth and brilliance.