Chris broke it at last, moved, and shyly spoke. "Trevor!"
She drew slightly towards him, and at once he put a quiet arm about her. "I want to tell you something," she said.
"I--I don't know." A faint note of distress sounded in her voice. She laid her cheek suddenly against his shoulder with a very confiding gesture. "I'm not quite happy," she said.
He held her closer. "Tell me, Chris!" he said very tenderly.
She uttered a little laugh that had a sob in it. "It's only that--that I can't help feeling that you're making rather a bad bargain. You know, the other day--when--when you proposed to me--I didn't have time to think. I've been thinking since."
"Yes. And now and then--only now and then--I feel rather bad. I--I like fair play, Trevor. It isn't right for me to take so much and give--so little." Her voice quivered perceptibly, and she ceased to speak. He pressed her closer to him, but he remained silent for several seconds.
At last, "Chris," he said, "will it comfort you to know that what you call a little is to me the greatest thing on earth?"
His voice was deep and very quiet, yet a tremor went through her at his words.
"That's just what frightens me," she said.
"It shouldn't frighten you," he said. "It need not."
He was silent for another space, still holding her closely. In the room behind them they could hear the cousins talking; but they were alone together, shut off, as it were, from ordinary converse, alone under the stars.
"Suppose," said Mordaunt gently, "you leave off thinking for a bit, and take things as they come."
He bent down to her. "Chris, I will never ask more of you than you are able to give."
She moved at that in her quick, impulsive way, reached up and clasped his neck. "Oh, Trevor, I do love you!" she said, with a catch in her voice. "I do want you to have--the best!"
Her face was raised to his. For the first time she offered him her lips. They were nearer to understanding each other at that moment than they had ever been before.
But as he bent lower to kiss her the notes of the piano floated out to them again, this time in a soft melody, inexpressibly sweet, full of a subtle charm, the fairy gold of romance.
She kissed him indeed--and it was the first kiss she had ever given him; but he felt her stiffen in his hold even as she did it. And the next moment, almost with passion, she spoke--