And this night was the most divine of any they had spent on the Bürgenstock. But there was in it an essence about which only the angels could write.
Do you know the Belvedere at the Rigi Kaltbad, looking over the corner to a vast world below, on a fair day in May, when the air is clear as crystal and the lake ultra-marine? When the Bernese Oberland undulates away in unbroken snow, its pure whiteness like cold marble, the shadows grey-blue?
Have you seen the tints of the beeches, of the pines, of the firs, clinging like some cloak of life to the hoary-headed mountains, a reminder that spring is eternal, and youth must have its day, however grey beards and white heads may frown?
And so is the air up there. Hungry and strong and--young.
Paul and his lady stood and looked down in rapt silence. It was giving her, as she said, an emotion, but of what sort he was not sure. They were all alone. No living soul was anywhere in view.
She had been in a mood, all day when she seldom raised her eyes. It reminded him of the first time he had seen her, and wonder grew again in his mind. All the last night her soul had seemed melted into his in a fusion of tenderness and trust, exalted with the exquisite thought of the wish which was between them. And he had felt at last he had fathomed its inmost recess.
But to-day, as he gazed down at her white-rose paleness, the heavy lashes making their violet shadow on her cheek--her red mouth mutinous and full--the conviction came back to him that there were breadths and depths and heights about which he had no conception even. And an ice hand clutched his heart. Of what strange thing was she thinking? leaning over the parapet there, her delicate nostrils quivering now and then.
"Paul," she said at last, "did you ever want to kill any one? Did you ever long to have them there at your mercy, to choke their life out and throw them to hell?"
Then at last she looked up at him, and her eyes were black with hate. "Well, I do, Paul. I would like to kill one man on earth--a useless, vicious weakling, too feeble to deserve a fine death--a rotting carrion spoiling God's world and encumbering my path! I would kill him if I could--and more than ever today."
"Oh, my Queen, my Queen!" said Paul, distressed. "Don't say such things--you, my own tender woman and love--"