“Will the universe crumble?” she cried with the most provoking little laugh.  Now that sentence was my rock ahead, whenever I tried to give Jane some idea of the state of my affections.  It was a part of the speech which I had prepared and delivered to Mary in Jane’s hearing, as you already know.  I had said to the princess:  “The universe will crumble and the heavens roll up as a scroll ere my love shall alter or pale.”  It was a high-sounding sentence, but it was not true, as I was forced to admit, almost with the same breath that spoke it.  Jane had heard it, and had stored it away in that memory of hers, so tenacious in holding to everything it should forget.  It is wonderful what a fund of useless information some persons accumulate and cling to with a persistent determination worthy of a better cause.  I thought Jane never would forget that unfortunate, abominable sentence spoken so grandiloquently to Mary.  I wonder what she would have thought had she known that I had said substantially the same thing to a dozen others.  I never should have won her in that case.  She does not know it yet, and never shall if I can prevent.  Although dear Jane is old now, and the roses on her cheeks have long since paled, her gray eyes are still there, with their mischievous little twinkle upon occasion, and—­in fact, Jane can be as provoking as ever when she takes the fancy, for she is as sure of my affection now as upon the morning of that rare ride to Windsor.  Aye, surer, since she knows that in all these years it has changed only to grow greater and stronger and truer in the fructifying light of her sweet face, and the nurturing warmth of her pure soul.  What a blessed thing it is for a man to love his wife and be satisfied with her, and to think her the fairest being in all the world; and how thrice happy is he who can stretch out the sweetest season of his existence, the days of triumphant courtship, through the flying years of all his life, and then lie down to die in the quieted ecstasy of a first love.

So Jane halted my effort to pour out my heart, as she always did.

“There is something that greatly troubles me,” she said.

“What is it?” I asked in some concern.

“My mistress,” she answered, nodding in the direction of the two riding ahead of us.  “I never saw her so much interested in any one as she is in your friend, Master Brandon.  Not that she is really in love with him as yet perhaps, but I fear it is coming and I dread to see it.  She has never been compelled to forego anything she wanted, and her desires are absolutely imperative.  They drive her, and she is helpless against them.  She would not and could not make the smallest effort to overcome them.  I think it never occurred to her that such a thing could be necessary; everything she wants she naturally thinks is hers by divine right.  There has been no great need of such an effort until now, but your friend Brandon presents it.  I wish he were at the other side of the world.  I think