When he stopped, she sat up and studied him a moment in
bewilderment:
"But why did you call that a dark story?" she asked. "Where is the
cruelty? It is beautiful, and I shall never forget it and it will
never throw a dark image on my mind: New Year's day--the winter
woods--the journeying throng--the oak--the bough--the banquet
beneath--the white bulls with fillets on their horns--the white-robed
priest--the golden sickle in his hand--the stroke that severs the
mistletoe--the prayer that each soul receiving any smallest piece will
be blessed in life's sorrows! If I were a great painter, I should like
to paint that scene. In the centre should be some young girl,
pressing to her heart what she believed to be heaven's covenant with
her under the guise of a blossom. How could you have wished to
withhold such a story from me?"
He smiled at her a little sadly.
"I have not yet told you all," he said, "but I have told you enough."
Instantly she bent far over toward him with intuitive scrutiny. Under
her breath one word escaped:
"Ah!"
It was the breath of a discovery--a discovery of something unknown to
her.
"I am sparing you, Josephine!"
She stretched each arm along the back of the sofa and pinioned the
wood in her clutch.
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