Passionate devotion was surging up in his breast.
And he was an Englishman, and it was still the morning. There was no
moon now and he had not even breakfasted! This shows sufficiently to
what state he had come.
"I want you to tell me all about Versailles," she said, looking to the
left and the gray wing beyond the chapel. "Its histories and its
meanings. I used to read about it all after Sarah brought me here once
for our treat, but you probably are learned upon the subject, and I want
to know."
"I would much rather hear what you did when Sarah brought you here for
your treat," he said.
"Oh! it was a very simple day," and she leaned back and laughed softly
at the recollection. "Papa was very hard up at that time, you know, and
we were rather poor, so we came as cheaply as we could, Sarah,
Clementine, and I, and I remember there were some very snuffy men in the
train--we could not go first-class, you see--and one of them rather
frightened me."
"The brute!" said Hector.
"I think I was about fourteen."
"And even then perfectly beautiful, I expect," he commented to himself.
"We walked up from the station, and oh! we saw all the galleries and we
ran all over the park, but we missed the way to Trianon somehow and
never saw that, and when we got back here we were too tired to start
again. We had only had sandwiches, you see, that we brought with us, and
some funny little drinks at a café down there," and she pointed vaguely
towards the lake, "because we found we had only one franc fifty between
us all. But we were so happy, and Clementine knows a great deal, and
told us many things which were quite different from what was in the
guide-books--but it seems so long, long ago. Do you know it must be six
years." And she looked at him seriously.
"Half a lifetime!" agreed Hector, with a whimsical smile.
"Oh! you are laughing at me!" she said, and there was a cloud in the
blue stars which looked up at him.
He made a movement nearer her--while his deep voice took every tone of
tenderness.
"Indeed, indeed I am not--you dear little girl! I love to hear of your
day. I was only smiling to think that six years ago you were a baby
child, and I was then an old man in feeling--let me see, I was
twenty-five, and I was in Russia."