"Have you ever known pain?"
"Yes. I thought my mind was going."
"But not pain of your body?"
"Oh, no, not that."
"The pain of the body is something to be afraid of. If we have it once,
we cringe when we see it coming. But your singing--can I tell you what
it wakens in me? No, for I don't know. Pain, the premonition of pain.
Something I must escape."
"Yet I was to sit by and sing to you while you were at work."
"Yes, but that would be when we were quite content." It was the first
wistful hint that things were lacking to him. He could not be contented;
yet, against reason, his manner told a different, braver story.
"You said," she began, "if armies came between us, they could not break
the little thread. Suppose I go away?"
"That wouldn't break it. Don't you suppose my thought can run to London
or Rome? It isn't worth much if it can't."
"Suppose I"--she stopped, appalled at herself for the thought, but
jealously anxious to be told.
"Suppose you marry the prince? That would be dreadful, because you don't
love him. But it wouldn't break the thread. It would muffle it, I guess.
We couldn't think back and forth on it. But it would be there."
Immediately it seemed to her that she had something even more precious
than she had guessed, something not to be imperiled.
"I must not do anything to muffle it," she said. "Either with the
prince--or any one."
"The only thing I'm afraid of," he went on, "is that you won't stand up
to your father. Why, you must, playmate, if you feel like that about
him."
She answered bitterly.
"I am afraid, I suppose."
Osmond spoke out sharply in the tone of a man who dismisses dreams.
"Don't be afraid. Stand up and fight."
Her pathetic voice recalled him.
"But think! You said you were afraid of pain. You ought to know what
fear is."