But not until that instant, as she stood before him unguarded in his lonely cottage, so slight and sweet and unexpectedly gentle, her eyes as limpid as the water of a brook, her lips soft and kind and unkissed, her whole young body radiating virginity, did he really know how amazingly and frighteningly he loved her.

But once again he held back a rush of adoring words and a desire to touch and hold and claim.

The time had not come yet.

Let her warm to him.

Let him live down the ugliness of the mood that she had recently put him into, do away with the impression he must have given her of jealousy and petulance and scorn.