Every sound, every rustle of the wind through the plants that were scattered over the balcony caused him to look toward the door through which she must come to him.
At last she appeared, and he hastened to meet her. As he took her hands in his, she said softly, dreamily, looking over his shoulder toward the mountain's crest: "The same fair moon," and smiled into his eyes.
"The same fair maid and the same man," he added. "I believe the band is playing the same air; upon my soul, I do."
"Yes, the same air, La Paloma. It is my lullaby. Come, let us walk. I cannot sit quietly now. Talk to me. Let me listen and be happy."
Slowly they paced the wide balcony, through the moonlight and the shadows, her hand resting on his arm, his clasping it gently. Love obstructs the flow of speech; the heart-beats choke back the words and fill the throat.
Lorry talked but little, she not at all. Times there were when; they covered the full length of the balcony without a word. And yet they understood each other. The mystic, the enchanting silence of love was fraught with a conversation felt, not heard.
"Why are you so quiet?" he asked, at last, stopping near the rail.
"I cannot tell you why. It seems to me that I am afraid of you," she answered, a shy quaver in her voice.
"Afraid of me? I don't understand."
"Nor do I. You are not as you were before this morning. You are different--yes, you make me feel that I am weak and helpless and that you can say to me 'come' and 'go' and I must obey. Isn't it odd that I, who have never known submissiveness, should so suddenly find myself tyrannized?" she asked, smiling faintly.
"Shall I tell you why you are afraid of me?" he asked.
"You will say it is because I am forgetting to be a Princess."
"No; it is because you no longer look upon me as you did in other days. It is because I am a possibility, an entity instead of a shadow. Yesterday you were the Princess and looked down upon the impossible suitor; to-day you find that you have given yourself to him and that you do not regard the barrier as insurmountable. You were not timid until you found your power to resist gone. Today you admit that I may hope, and in doing so you open a gate through the walls of your pride and prejudice that can never be closed against the love within and the love without. You are afraid of me because I am no longer a dream, but a reality. Am I not right, Yetive?"