The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (11.1896)

32 The Happy Hypocrite
in the wood, how she knew them all by their voices. “ That is
a chaffinch singing. Listen ! ” she said. And she tried to
imitate its note, that her lover might remember. All the birds,
according to her, were good, except the cuckoo, and whenever
she heard him sing she would stop her ears, lest she should for-
give him for robbing the nests. “ Every day,” she said, “ I have
come to the wood, because I was lonely, and it seemed to pity
me. But now I have you. And it is glad.”
She clung closer to his arm, and he kissed her She pushed
back her straw bonnet, so that it dangled from her neck by its
ribands, and laid her little head against his shoulder. For a while
he forgot his treachery to her, thinking only of his love and her
love. Suddenly she said to him, “ Will you try not to be angry
with me, if I tell you something ? It is something that will seem
dreadful to you.”
“ Pauvrette” he answered, “you cannot have anything very
dreadful to tell.”
“I am very poor,” she said, “and every night I dance in a
theatre. It is the only thing I can do to earn my bread. Do
you despise me because I dance ? ” She looked up shyly at him
and saw that his face was full of love for her and not angry.
“ Do you like dancing ? ” he asked.
“I hate it,” she answered, quickly. “I hate it indeed. Yet
to-night, alas ! I must dance again in the theatre.”
“You need never dance again,” said her lover. “I am rich
and I will pay them to release you. You shall dance only for me.
Sweetheart, it cannot be much more than noon. Let us go
into the town, while there is time, and you shall be made my bride,
and I your bridegroom, this very day. Why should you and I be
lonely ? ”
“ I do not know,” she said.

So