'She
would see nothing in me,' I said; and still I would not have given
up my hope for a kingdom."
"It was not so hard, after all, to win what was already yours,
Pierre, was it?" said she with a smile and a look of unutterable
sweetness; "but it was well you asked, for without asking you would
be like one possessing a treasure of gold in his field without
knowing it, although it was all the while there and all his own.
But not a grain of it would you have found without asking me,
Pierre!"
"But having found it I shall never lose it again, darling!" replied
he, pressing her to his bosom.
"Never, Pierre, it is yours forever!" replied she, her voice
trembling with emotion. "Love is, I think, the treasure in heaven
which rusts not, and which no thief can steal."
"Amelie," said he after a few minutes' silence, "some say men's
lives are counted not by hours but by the succession of ideas and
emotions. If it be so, I have lived a century of happiness with you
this afternoon. I am old in love, Amelie!"
"Nay, I would not have you old in love, Pierre! Love is the
perennial youth of the soul.
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