"
She clapped her hands gleefully, wilfully misunderstanding his meaning.
"Most complimentary of monarchs! So I am the haggard old fisherman who
replaced the lost bawble in the royal treasury! Pray, Sire, remember the
pension with which I should be rewarded!" And she bowed low, in mock
courtesy to her companion.
"Nay," rejoined Anthrops, vexed that his earnest compliment should be so
mishandled,--"blame your own perversity for such an interpretation. At
your side I forget that I live for any other purpose than to look at
you, and lavish my whole soul in an intensity of gazing; and then the
presumptuous thought, that you like to have me near you, nay, are
sometimes even pleased to talk to me, gives my poor self a value in my
own eyes, for the kindness you show me."
"I know all that well enough," said Haguna, quietly. "But in the mean
while, dear Anthrops, you must remember that it is really impolite to
stare so much."
By this time they had ridden deep into the still woods. Following the
light current of their talking, they wound in and out among the green
trees, under their broad arching boughs,--now following the path, now
beating a new track over the short grass mixed with the crisp gray moss.
The sunlight glanced shyly through the fluttering leaves, weaving with
their delicate shadows a rare tracery on the grass.
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