Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He held out his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could be nothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and give back again. And yet Donatello's heart was so fresh a fountain, that, had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she might have found it exquisite to slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up and brimmed over from it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval epoch, when some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even for her, however, there was an inexpressible charm in the simplicity that prompted Donatello's words and deeds; though, unless she caught them in precisely the true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring of a maimed or imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almost admired, or wholly scorned him, and knew not which estimate resulted from the deeper appreciation. But it could not, she decided for herself, be other than an innocent pastime, if they two--sure to be separated by their different paths in life, to-morrow--were to gather up some of the little pleasures that chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets and wood-anemones, to-day.
Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she still held to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril.
"If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person,"said she, "If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. You ought to be afraid of me.""I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe," he replied.
"And well you may, for it is full of malaria," said Miriam; she went on, hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdened hearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried. "Those who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I do assure you.
Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that has brought you from your home among the Apennines,--some rusty old castle, I suppose, with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment of vineyards, fig-trees, and olive orchards,--a sad mischance, I say, that has transported you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, have you not, Donatello?""O, yes," answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospective turn, he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into the past. "Iremember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas at a village feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and the old, ripened wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winter evenings; and to devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, cherries, and melons.
I was often happy in the woods, too, with hounds and horses, and very happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birds that haunt the leafy solitudes. But never half so happy as now!""In these delightful groves?" she asked.
"Here, and with you," answered Donatello. "Just as we are now.""What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!" said Miriam to herself. Then addressing him again: "But, Donatello, how long will this happiness last?""How long!" he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of the future than to remember the past. "Why should it have any end? How long!
Forever! forever! forever!"
"The child! the simpleton!" said Miriam, with sudden laughter, and checking it as suddenly. "But is he a simpleton indeed? Here, in those few natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profound conviction of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails to bring.
He perplexes me,--yes, and bewitches me,--wild, gentle, beautiful creature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!"Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out of them. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, in feeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, blow over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by it.
The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it ought to be a forbidden one.
