other man, while I live. I shall grow young again, I will grow young for
you, for, in years at least, I am not old. I will be a boy for you, Vjera,
and I will love as boys love, but with the strength of a man who has known
sorrow and overlived it. You shall not feel that in taking me you are
taking a father, a protector, a man to whom your youth seems childhood,
and your youthfulness childish folly. No, no--I will be more than that to
you, I will be all to you that you are to me, and more, and more, each
day, till love has made us of one age, of one mind, of one heart. Do you
not believe that all this shall be? Speak, dear. What is there yet behind
in your thoughts?"

"I cannot tell. I wish I knew." Vjera's answer was scarcely audible and
she turned her face from him.

"And yet, there is something, you are keeping something from me, when I
have kept nothing from you. Why is it? Why do you not quite trust me and
believe in me? I can make you happy, now. Yesterday it was different and
so it was in all the yesterdays of yesterdays. I had nothing to offer you
but myself."

"It were best so," said Vjera in a low voice.

The Count was silent. There was something in her manner which he could not
understand, or rather, as he fancied, there was something in his own brain
which prevented him from understanding a very simple matter, and he grew
impatient with himself. At the same time he felt more and more strongly
drawn to the young girl at his side. As the sun went down and the evening
shadows deepened, he saw more in her face than he had been accustomed to
see there. Every line of the pale features so familiar to his sight in his
everyday life, reminded him of moments in the recent past when he had been