Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip Page B

sprite, an undine, or by La Belle Dame Sans Merci, you’re sunk. But others have found a way to freedom—Thomas the Rhymer, for instance, and Tam Lin.”
    They were walking more and more slowly, Emma realized. Bram Wilding had already vanished back into the party. Light and Linley Coombe’s sonorous voice spilled through the studio doors Wilding had left open.
     
    Through mists and reeds he ran,
    Through water gray as cloud
    And air that grasped him with
    unseen hands,
    And clung closer than a shroud.
     
    They stopped before they reached the doors. Their eyes met above the lamp in Emma’s hand. She searched, curious, hoping to find the reflection of her strange feelings in his eyes.
    He said softly, huskily, “Miss Slade, I don’t mean to offend, but I’ve never—I’ve never felt this way before about anyone. As though all my life I have been on my way to meet you.”
    A smile seemed to shine through her as though she had swallowed the lamplight. “Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Yes. I feel it, too.”
    “Do you?” he whispered back with an amazed laugh. “Isn’t it strange? We hardly know each other.”
    “I suppose that’s what comes next.”
    “What?”
    “Getting to know one another,” she answered. “For example, you should know that my second name is Sophronia.”
    “Really? Emma Sophronia?”
    “After my mother’s great aunt.”
    “Well,” he said, drawing breath. “It won’t be easy, but I think I can bear it. Mine’s Eustace.”
    “Edward Eustace Bonham. How terribly respectable.”
    “I try to live above it.”
     
    Until at last he saw the day
    Green and gold around him spread,
    The timeless, changeless
    land of Fay,
    And he was seized with
    mortal dread.
    “Would I were with the
    dead instead,”
    he cried, then saw the Fairy Queen.
     
    “Any other dreadful secrets?” he asked.
    “I once threw an aspidistra at Adrian.”
    “Did you hit him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good shot. I’m sure he deserved it.”
    “And you?”
    “I suppose you should know,” he said reluctantly, “that I can never be that romantic figure, the struggling artist in the garret, much as I wish I could deceive you. I was an only child, and my father died several years ago, leaving me more money than is good for anyone, a house in the city, and another on a lake in the north country.”
    “Oh,” she said, amazed. “Mr. Bonham, how have you managed to stay unattached?”
    “How have you?” he countered, “looking the way you do, like a young goddess who got stranded among mortals?”
    She felt her cheeks warm. “Really? I always see myself as such a hobbledehoy of a girl. Fashionable young women are supposed to look delicate and spiritual. That’s hard to do when you’re nearly as tall as most men. In the country, I have a reputation for being eccentric. I wander around in a pair of big rubber boots and a huge hat, carrying my easel and paints. I bribed the milkmaid to pose for me dressed in ribbons and lace among the sheep, and the old gardener to wear a cloak and a tunic and pose as a druid on top of a ruined tower. He never heard the end of that.”
     
And oh, she was as fair as fair
Can be, with hair spun out of gold
And emerald eyes without a cloud or care,
Just a smile to make the mortal bold
And walk into her lair. She said,
“Come into my bower and tarry with me...”
     
    “Miss Slade.”
    “Yes, Mr. Bonham?”
    “Should I ask you to marry me now, or would you like me to wait a bit?”
    She felt no great surprise, only a deepening of the strange peace she felt upon first looking into his eyes. “I suppose,” she said reluctantly, “you should wait, otherwise people will think we are completely frivolous. Perhaps you should invite me for a walk in the park instead. Tomorrow afternoon when I finish posing for Miss Cameron. There should be time before dark.”
    “Do you think I am frivolous?”
    “No,” she said quickly, surprised. “How can you ask that? You must know that my heart