"Yes. He said it would be better for you, better for all the giants, if we two--abstained from conversation. That was how he put it."
"But what can they do if we don't?"
"He said you might have your freedom."
"_I!_"
"He said, with a stress, 'My dear young lady, it would be better, it would be more dignified, if you parted, willingly.' That was all he said. With a stress on willingly."
"But--! What business is it of these little wretches, where we love, how we love? What have they and their world to do with us?"
"They do not think that."
"Of course," he said, "you disregard all this."
"It seems utterly foolish to me."
"That their laws should fetter us! That we, at the first spring of life, should be tripped by their old engagements, their aimless institutions I Oh--! We disregard it."
"I am yours. So far--yes."
"So far? Isn't that all?"
"But they--If they want to part us--"
"What can they do?"
"I don't know. What _can_ they do?" "Who cares what they can do, or what they will do? I am yours and you are mine. What is there more than that? I am yours and you are mine--for ever. Do you think I will stop for their little rules, for their little prohibitions, their scarlet boards indeed!--and keep from _you_?"
"Yes. But still, what can they do?"
"You mean," he said, "what are we to do?"
