Quest of the Golden Girl Part 10

"Oh, it's wonderful," she replied; "don't spoil it by talking."

And I didn't; for who could hope to compete with the sun, who was making the whole dewy world shake with laughter at his brilliancy, or with the birds, any one of whom was a poet at least equal to Herrick?

Presently we found ourselves at four crossroads, with a four-fingered post in the centre. We had agreed to leave our destination to chance.

We read the sign-post.

"Which shall we choose?" I said,--

"Auca.s.sin, true love and fair, To what land do we repair?"

"Don't you think this one," she replied, "this one?--To the Moon!"

"Certainly, we couldn't find a prettier place; but it's a long way," I replied, looking up at the sky, all roses and pearls,--"a long way from the Morning Star to the Moon."

"All the longer to be free," cried Nicolete, recklessly.

"So be it," I a.s.sented. "Allons--to the Moon!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON

Two friends of my youth, with whom it would be hopeless to attempt compet.i.tion, have described the star-strewn journey to the moon. It is not for me to essay again where the ingenious M. Jules Verne and Mr.

William Morris have preceded me. Besides, the journey is nowadays much more usual, and therefore much less adventurous, than when those revered writers first described it. In the middle ages a journey to the moon with a woman you loved was a very perilous matter indeed. Even in the last century the roads were much beset with danger; but in our own day, like most journeys, it is accomplished with ease and safety in a few hours.

However, to the latter-day hero, whose appet.i.te for dragons is not keen, this absence of adventure is perhaps rather pleasurable than otherwise; and I confess that I enjoyed the days I spent on foot with Nicolete none the less because they pa.s.sed in tranquil uneventfulness,--that is, without events of the violent kind. Of course, all depends on what you call an event. We were not waylaid by robbers, we fed and slept unchallenged at inns, we escaped collision with the police, and we encountered no bodily dangers of any kind; yet should I not call the journey uneventful, nor indeed, I think, would Nicolete.

To me it was one prolonged divine event, and, with such daily intercourse with Nicolete, I never dreamed of craving for any other excitement. To walk from morning to evening by her side, to minister to her moods, to provide such entertainment as I might for her brain, and watch like a father over her physical needs; to note when she was weary and too proud to show it, and to pretend to be done up myself; to choose for her the easiest path, and keep my eyes open for wayside flowers and every country surprise,--these, and a hundred other attentions, kept my heart and mind in busy service.

To picnic by some lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask of claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we loved; to exchange our hopes and dreams,--we asked nothing better than this simple fare.

And so a week went by. But, though so little had seemed to happen, and though our walking record was shamefully modest, yet, imperceptible as the transition had been, we were, quite insensibly indeed, and unacknowledged, in a very different relation to each other than when we had started out from the Morning Star. In fact, to make no more words about it, I was head over heels in love with Nicolete, and I think, without conceit, I may say that Nicolete was rapidly growing rather fond of me. Apart from anything else, we were such excellent chums. We got along together as if indeed we had been two brothers, equable in our tempers and one in our desires.

At last the feeling on my side became so importunate that I could no longer keep silence.

We were seated together taking tea at a small lonely inn, whose windows looked out over a romantic little lake, backed by Salvator Rosa pine-woods. The sun was beginning to grow dreamy, and the whole world to wear a dangerously sentimental expression.

I forget exactly what it was, but something in our talk had set us glowing, had touched tender chords of unexpected sympathy, and involuntarily I stretched out my hand across the corner of the table and pressed Nicolete's hand as it rested on the cloth. She did not withdraw it, and our eyes met with a steady gaze of love.

"Nicolete," I said presently, when I could speak, "it is time for you to be going back home."

"Why?" she asked breathlessly.

"Because," I answered, "I must love you if you stay."

"Would you then bid me go?" she said.

"Nicolete," I said, "don't tempt me. Be a good girl and go home."

"But supposing I don't want to go home," she said; "supposing--oh, supposing I love you too? Would you still bid me go?"

"Yes," I said. "In that case it would be even more imperative."

"Auca.s.sin!"

"It is true, it is true, dear Nicolete."

"Then, Auca.s.sin," she replied, almost sternly, in her great girlish love, "this is true also,--I love you. I have never loved, shall never love, any man but you!"

"Nicolete!"

"Auca.s.sin!"

There were no more words spoken between us for a full hour that afternoon.

CHAPTER IX

WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT

I knew deep down in my heart that it couldn't last, yet how deny myself these roses, while the opportunity of gathering them was mine!--the more so, as I believed it would do no harm to Nicolete. At all events, a day or two more or less of moons.h.i.+ne would make no matter either way.

And so all next day we walked hand in hand through Paradise.

It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told us, that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first woman we love, is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But true is it also that no less sweet is the first kiss of the last woman we love.

Putting my faith in old saws, as a young man will, I had never dreamed to know again a bliss so divinely pa.s.sionate and pure as came to me with every glance of Nicolete's sweet eyes, with every simple pressure of her hand; and the joy that was mine when sometimes, stopping on our way, we would press together our lips ever so gravely and tenderly, seems too holy even to speak of.

The holy angels could not have loved Nicolete with a purer love, a love freer from taint of any earthly thought, than I, a man of thirty, blase, and fed from my youth upon the honeycomb of woman.

It was curious that the first difficulty of our pilgrimage should befall us the very next day. Coming towards nightfall to a small inn in a lonely unpopulated countryside, we found that the only accommodation the inn afforded was one double-bedded room, and there was no other inn for at least ten miles. I think I was more troubled than Nicolete. When, after interviewing the landlady, I came and told her of the dilemma, where she sat in the little parlour wearied out with the day's walk, she blushed, it is true, but seemed little put about. Indeed, she laughed, and said it was rather fun, "like something out of Sterne,"--of such comfort is a literary reference in all seasons and circ.u.mstances,--and then she added, with a sweet look that sent the blood rioting about my heart, "It won't matter so much, will it, love, NOW?"

There proved nothing for it but to accept the situation, and we made the arrangement that Nicolete was to slip off to bed first, and then put out the light and go to sleep. However, when I followed her, having sat up as long as the landlady's patience would endure, I found that, though she had blown out the candle, she had forgotten to put out the moon, which shone as though it were St. Agnes' Eve across half the room.

I stole in very shyly, kept my eyes sternly from Nicolete's white bed, though, as I couldn't shut my ears, the sound of her breathing came to me with indescribable sweetness. After I had lain among the sheets some five or ten minutes, I was suddenly startled by a little voice within the room saying,--

"I'm not asleep."

"Well, you should be, naughty child. Now shut your eyes and go to sleep,--and fair dreams and sweet repose," I replied.

"Won't you give me one little good-night kiss?"

"I gave you one downstairs."

"Is it very wicked to want another?"