"How should I know," she asked him, "as yet?" He noted she had incredibly
long lashes.

"Thrice happy is he that convinces you!" says Florian. And about them,
who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an
ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red
brevity of her lips and their probable softness.

Meanwhile the elder women regarded each other.

"It is the season of May. They are young and they are together. Poor
children!" said Dame Melicent. "Youth cries to youth for the toys of
youth, and saying, 'Lo, I cry with the voice of a great god!'"

"Still," said Madame Adelaide, "Puysange is a good fief--"

But Florian heeded neither of them as he stood there by the sunlit
stream, in which no drop of water retained its place for a moment, and
which yet did not alter in appearance at all. He did not heed his elders
for the excellent reason that Sylvie de Nointel was about to speak, and
he preferred to listen to her. For this girl, he knew, was lovelier than
any other person had ever been since Eve first raised just such admiring,
innocent, and venturesome eyes to inspect what must have seemed to her
the quaintest of all animals, called man. So it was with a shrug that
Florian remembered how he had earlier fancied other women for one reason
or another; since this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a
love which would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.

* * * * *