"Not yet," she said, "your head is safe till you tell me how you got here, at all events. Now tell me--oh, tell me. I can't believe it until you tell me."
She moved a little away from the door.
"Come in," she said shyly, "if you've come all the way from America you must be very tired."
St. George shook his head.
"Come out," he pleaded, "I want to stand on top of a high mountain and show you the whole world."
She went quite simply and without hesitation--because, in Yaque, the maddest things would be the truest--and when she had stepped from the low doorway she looked up at him in the tender light of the garden terrace.
"If you are quite sure," she said, "that you will not disappear in the dark?"
St. George laughed happily.
"I shall not disappear," he promised, "though the world were to turn round the other way."
They crossed the still terrace to the parapet and stood looking out to sea with the risen moon shining across the waters. The light wind stirred in the cedrine junipers, shaking out perfume; the great fairy pile of the palace rose behind them; and before them lay the monstrous moon-lit abyss than whose depths the very stars, warm and friendly, seemed nearer to them. To the big young American in blue serge beside the little new princess who had drawn him over seas the dream that one is always having and never quite remembering was suddenly come true. No wonder that at that moment the patient Amory was far enough from his mind. To St. George, looking down upon Olivia, there was only one truth and one joy in the universe, and she was that truth and that joy.
"I can't believe it," he said boyishly.
"Believe--what?" she asked, for the delight of hearing him say so.
"This--me--most of all, you!" he answered.
"But you must believe it," she cried anxiously, "or maybe it will stop being."
"I will, I will, I am now!" promised St. George in alarm.
Whereat they both laughed again in sheer light-heartedness. Then, resting his broad shoulders against a prism of the parapet, St. George looked down at her in infinite content.
"You found the island," she said; "what is still more wonderful you have come here--but here--to the top of the mountain. Oh, did you bring news of my father?"
St. George would have given everything save the sweet of the moment to tell her that he did.
"But now," he added cheerfully, and his smile disarmed this of its over-confidence, "I've only been here two days or so. And, though it may look easy, I've had my hands full climbing up this. I ought to be allowed another day or two to locate your father."