"Trample me down, dear feet which I have followed all through the world and I will worship you. Tread me down and I will kiss you for it."
[Illustration: MERLIN FELT SO TERRIBLY SAD.]
"Merlin do you love me?" at last cried Vivien, with her face sadly appealing to him. And again, "O, Merlin, do you love me?" "Great Master, do you love me?" she cried for the third time.
And then when he was as quiet as ever she writhed up toward him, slid upon his knee, twined her feet about his ankles, curved her arms about his neck and used one of her hands as a white comb to run through his long ashy beard which she drew all across her neck down to her knees.
"See! I'm clothing myself with wisdom," she cried. "I'm a golden summer butterfly that's been caught in a great old tyrant spider's web that's going to eat me up in this big wild wood without a word to me."
"What do you mean, Vivien, with these pretty tricks of yours?" cried Merlin at last. "What do you want me to give you?"
"What!" said Vivien, smiling saucily, "have you found your tongue at last? Now yesterday you didn't open your lips once except to drink. And then I, with my own lady hands, made a pretty cup and offered you your water kneeling before you and you drank it, but gave me not a word of thanks. And when we stopped at the other spring when you lay with your feet all golden with blossoms from the meadows we passed through you know that I bathed your feet before I bathed my own. But yet no thanks from you. And all through this wild wood, all through this morning when I fondled you, still not a word of thanks."
Then Merlin locked her hand in his and said, "Vivien, have you never seen a wave as it was coming up the beach ready to break? Well, I've been seeing a wave that was ready to break on me. It seemed to me that some dark, tremendous wave was going to come and sweep me away from my hold on the world, away from my fame and my usefulness and my great name. That's why I came away from Arthur's court to make me forget it and feel better. And when I saw you coming after me it seemed to me that you were that wave that was going to roll all over me. But pardon me, now, child, your pretty ways have brightened everything again, and now tell me what you would like to have from me. For I owe you something three times over, once for neglecting you, twice for the thanks for your goodness to me, and lastly for those dainty gambols of yours. So tell me now, what will you have?"