The four poplars clove the intense dark blue, but not so loftily as in his first remembrance of them. The street was quiet Not a sound disturbed the humming spicy silence of the summer night Paul turned from that sweet intoxication to her face. She smiled at him, and his heart seemed to swoon. He did not know till later, but she suffered from some very slight tenderness of the eyes which made them shrink from too much light, and he had never seen her in her full beauty until this moment, when they seemed so large and deep that he could scarcely bear to look at them. She had a hat in her hand, and she held it out to him, still smiling, but so dreamily, so unlike herself, that he could but look and tremble and wonder. He took the hat mechanically, and saw that it was his own. He thought himself dismissed, and his heart changed from a soft ethereal fire to cold lead.

'Auntie!' she called--'Aunt Deb 'Me and Paul's goin' to take a bit of a walk. I've got to give him a lecture.'

Some affectionate a.s.senting answer came, and May floated into the moonlight, across the street, and into a shady alley which lay between two high-hedged gardens; then into moonlight again, across another road, through a clinking turnstile, and into a broad field, where Paul had played many a game of cricket before and after working hours. From here the open country gleamed, mystic and strange; every hill and dale familiar, and all unlike themselves, as a friend's ghost might be unlike the living friend.

Her first words jarred his dream to pieces.

'You're a funny boy, Paul. After all that fullishness of yours this morning I met your brother d.i.c.k. He gave me something. I've got it here this minute. I want to know if it belongs to you--really. d.i.c.k says it's all your very own, but I don't more'n half believe him. I say you must have copied it out of some book. Now, di'n't ee?'

'I don't know,' said Paul huskily. 'What is it?'

'It's a piece of poetry,' she said. 'Can you make poetry?'

'I try sometimes,' said Paul.

It cost an effort to answer. He wanted her to know, and he shrank from her knowing.

'Did you make this?'

'What?'

'I'll tell it.'

She spoke the lines prettily, and put away her rustic accent, all but the music:

'"Down in the West dwells my lady Clare: Blow, O balmy wind, from the West!

Bathe me in odours of her hair, Bring me her thoughts ere she fell to rest!

'"Beam, O moon, through her cas.e.m.e.nt bars; Bathe in thy glory her glorious hair: Keep guard over her, sentinel stars; Watch her and keep her, all things fair!"'

'You didn't make that up out of your own head, did ee, Paul?

'Yes,' said Paul.

Here was his divinity reciting the lines with which she herself had inspired him.

'Now, couldn't ee make a piece of poetry about me?' she asked.

Paul's heart gave one great thump at his breast and stopped.

'That was about you,' he said.

'Why, you silly boy,' she said, 'you've got the name wrong. But oh, Paul, ain't ee beginning very young? Askin' for maids' thoughts afore they go to sleep! Mine, too! You'll be a regular gallows young reprobate afore you're much older. That I'm sure of.'

There was a trembling wish deep down in his heart that she had left this unsaid, but how could he be so disloyal as to let it float to the surface? He drowned it deep, but it was there. She had misunderstood.

She read him coa.r.s.ely, not as the May of his dreams had read him.

'Now, you write something about me, will ee, Paul?--something in my own name. Will ee?' Paul made no answer for the moment, for the request fairly carried him off his balance. 'Will ee, now?' she asked, bringing her face in front of his.

'Yes, yes, yes,' he half sighed, half panted.

'Here's a stile,' she said, springing forward with a happy gurgle of a laugh. The laugh to Paul's ear was as musical as the sad chuckle of the nightingale, and as far from sorrow as its one rival is from mirth.

There was _camaraderie_ in it, sympathy, a touch even of something confidential. 'Now, well sit down here together, and you shall make it up.'

She perched on the stile as light as a perching bird, and drew her lithe figure on one side to make room for Paul. The stile was narrow, and there was barely room for two. Paul hesitated shyly, but she patted the seat in a pretty a.s.sumption of impatience, and he obeyed.

'Paul,' she said, sliding an arm behind him, and taking hold of the side-post. 'What was it ee wanted to tell this morning?'

'This morning?' said Paul stupidly. It is one thing to resolve to be courageous in battle. It may be another thing when the fight begins.

'Now, I'm sure you haven't forgot already,' she said. 'Here! You catch hold of the post on my side. Then we shall be comfortable.' She swayed forward to make easier for him the movement she advised, and her whole figure from ankle to shoulder touched him lightly. He obeyed, and she swung back again, nestling into the curve of his arm. 'That's nice, isn't it? Now, what was ee going to tell?' Paul had not a word to say for himself. If he had ever had the audacity to picture anything in his own mind like this present truth, he would have thought it certain to be deliriously happy; but as a matter of fact he was miserable, and felt himself at the clumsiest disadvantage. 'You said,' she murmured, half reproachfully, you'd go through fire _or_ water for me, Paul.'

'So I would,' said Paul.

'Why? she asked, nestling a little nearer. 'Why, Paul?'

'I would,' said he, rather sulkily than otherwise.

'Why?' She swayed forward again, and looked into his face. Her breath fanned his cheek. Her eyes were wide open and looked into his almost mournfully. 'Why?' Her glance hypnotized him. 'Why?'

'I love you,' he said, in a whisper.

'Do ee? she cooed. 'Oh, you silly Paul! What for?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'There never was anybody as lovely as you are.'

The words seemed to slide from him, apart from his will.

'Oh, you silly Paul Am I lovely?'

'Lovely? sighed Paul, and tangled his eyes in hers more and more.

'You'll make up that piece of poetry about me, won't ee, Paul?'

'Yes.'

The word was just audible, a breath, no more.

'You dear!' she said; and, leaning nearer and yet nearer to him, she laid her lips on his. They rested there for one thrilling instant, and then she drew back an inch or two only. 'Make it up about that,' she said, looking point blank into his eyes. Paul drooped his head and the lips met again, and fastened. A delicate fire burned him, and he curled his arm about her waist, and drew her to him. She yielded for one instant, and then slipped away with a panting laugh. 'Oh, Paul?' she said; 'you really are too dreadful for anything! Fancy! A mere child like you. I should like to know what Mr. Filmer'd say if ever he knew I'd let ee do that.'

By one of those curious intuitions to which the mind is open at times of profound excitement, Paul knew what her answer would be, but he asked the question. At first his voice made no sound; but he cleared his throat and spoke dryly, and in a tone of commonplace:

'Who is Mr. Filmer?'

'Mr. Filmer's the gentleman I'm going to be married to,' said May.

'He's a very jealous temper, and I shouldn't like him to know I'd been flirting, even with a child like you.'

It was all over.