I hummed the words as the sweet old tune, strummed by the tinkling
mandolins, vibrated clearly in the maze of other sounds:-
'Oh! the days have gone when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life from morn till night
Was Love, still Love.
New hope may bloom and days may come,
Of milder, calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As Love's Young Dream.'
At last, in a quiet spot under the oak-tree, the lately risen moon
found Patricia's diamond arrow and discovered her to me. The
Japanese lanterns had burned out; she was wrapped like a young nun,
in a cloud of white that made her eyelashes seem darker.
I looked once, because the moonbeam led me into it before I
realised; then I stole away from the window and into my own room,
closing the door softly behind me.
We had so far been looking only at conventionalities, preliminaries,
things that all (who had eyes to see) might see; but this was
different - quite, quite different.
They were as beautiful under the friendly shadow of their urban oak-
tree as were ever Romeo and Juliet on the balcony of the Capulets.
I may not tell you what I saw in my one quickly repented-of glance.
That would be vulgarising something that was already a little
profaned by my innocent participation.
