, and even if you did not express
it, you actually gave me a confession of love.

"Ah, how great things are in the beginning! There is never any
pettiness in the beginning.

"Once when we met in the public garden, I took you back at the end of
the afternoon through the suburbs. The road was so peaceful and quiet
that our footsteps seemed to disturb nature. Benumbed by emotion, we
slackened our pace. I leaned over and kissed you."

"There," she said.

She put her finger on his neck.

"Gradually the kiss grew warmer. It crept toward your lips and stopped
there. The first time it went astray, the second time it pretended it
went astray. Soon I felt against my mouth"--he lowered his voice--"your
mouth."

She bowed her head, and I saw her rosy mouth.

"It was all so beautiful in the midst of the watchfulness imprisoning
me," she sighed, ever returning to her mild, pathetic preoccupation.

How she needed the stimulus of remembering her emotions, whether
consciously or not! The recalling of these little dramas and former
perils warmed her movements, renewed her love. That was the reason why
she had had the whole story told her.

And he encouraged her. Their first enthusiasm returned, and now they
tried to evoke the most exciting memories.

"It was sad, the day after you became mine, to see you again at a
reception in your own home--inaccessible, surrounded by other people,
mistress of a regular household, friendly to everybody, a bit timid,
talking commonplaces. You bestowed the beauty of your face on
everybody, myself included. But what was the use?

"You were wearing that cool-looking green dress, and they were teasing
you about it. I did not dare to look at you when you passed me, and I
thought of how happy we had been the day before."

"Ah," she sighed, as the beauty widened before her of all her memories,
her thoughts, of all her soul, "love is not what they say it is. I,
too, was stirred with anguish. How I had to conceal it, dissimulating
every sign of my happiness, locking it hastily away within the coffer
of my heart. At first I was afraid to go to sleep for fear of saying
your name in a dream, and often, fighting against the stealthy invasion
of sleep, I have leaned on my elbow, and remained with wide-open eyes,
watching heroically over my heart.

"I was afraid of being recognised. I was afraid people would see the
purity in which I was bathed. Yes, purity. When in the midst of life