To say he was intoxicated with pleasure and love is to put it as it was. It seemed as if he had arrived at a zenith, and yet he knew there would be more to come. At last she raised herself and poured out the yellow wine--into one glass.
"My Paul," she said, "this is our wedding might, and this is our wedding wine. Taste from this our glass and say if it is good."
And to the day of his death, if ever Paul should taste that wine again, a mad current of passionate remembrance will come to him--and still more passionate regret.
Oh! the divine joy of that night! They sat upon the balcony presently, and Elaine in her worshipping thoughts of Lancelot--Marguerite wooed by Faust--the youngest girl bride--could not have been more sweet or tender or submissive than this wayward Tiger Queen.
"Paul," she said, "out of the whole world tonight there are only you and I who matter, sweetheart. Is it not so? And is not that your English word for lover and loved--'sweetheart'?"
And Paul, who had never even heard it used except in a kind of joke, now knew it was what he had always admired. Yes, indeed, it was "sweetheart"--and she was his!
"Remember, Paul," she whispered when, passion maddening him, he clasped her violently in his arms--"remember--whatever happens--whatever comes--for now, to-night, there is no other reason in all of this but just--I love you--I love you, Paul!"
"My Queen, my Queen!" said Paul, his voice hoarse in his throat.
And the wind played in softest zephyrs, and the stars blazed in the sky, mirroring themselves in the blue lake below.
Oh! glorious youth! and still more glorious love!
Who can tell the joy of their awakening? The transcendent pleasure to Paul to be allowed to play with his lady's hair, all unbound for him to do with as he willed? The glory to realise she was his--his own--in his arms? And then to be tenderly masterful and give himself lordly airs of possession. She was almost silent, only the history of the whole world of passion seemed written in her eyes--slumbrous, inscrutable, their heavy lashes making shadows on her soft, smooth cheeks.
The ring-dove was gone, a thing of mystery lay there instead--unresisting, motionless, white. Now and then Paul looked at her half in fear. Was she real? Was it some dream, and would he wake in his room at Verdayne Place among the sporting prints and solid Chippendale furniture to hear Tompson saying, "Eight o'clock, sir, and a fine day"?