Besides, he was ashamed of his own
embarrassed and awkward behavior to her, and of what she must think of
him when she knew that he needed a mediator. He had already raised his
hand to stop his brother when the appearance of the girl herself
caused everything else to grow dark to him. Quietly and alone, as
before, she stepped out of the door. Beneath the scarf with which she
had fanned herself she seemed to glance furtively about her. Again he
saw her cheeks grow redder. Had she seen him? But she turned her face
in the opposite direction. She seemed to be looking for something in
the grass in front of her. He saw her pick a little flower, lay it on
a bench and, after she had stood for a time as if in doubt whether she
should pick it up again or not, with quick decision turn again to the
door. A half involuntary movement of her arm seemed to tell him to
take it, that it was picked for him. Once more a wave of red rushed up
over her face to her dark brown hair, and the haste with which she
disappeared in the door seemed intended to prevent a regret which
might give rise to anxiety as to how her conduct would be understood.

The brother, who seemed not to have noticed anything of all this, had
continued to speak in his lively, vehement fashion; his words were
lost; our hero would have had to have had two lives in order to hear
them, for all the one he possessed was in his eyes. Now he saw his
brother rushing away toward the hall. He thought of detaining him, but
it was too late. In vain he hurried after him up to the door. There
the flower absorbed him again which the girl had left lying for some
finder, for a happy one, if _he_ found it for whom it was intended.
And while his lips continued to call softly and mechanically to his
brother, who no longer heard him, to keep silence, he was inwardly
asking himself: "Was it really I for whom she laid the flower here?
Did she lay it here for any one?" His heart answered both questions
with a happy "Yes," while at the same time the thing that his brother
intended to do troubled him.

If it was a sign of love from her and for him, then it was the last.

Twice he glanced surreptitiously into the hall when the door was
opened; he saw her dancing with his brother and then, when they were
resting after the dance, he saw his brother talking persuasively to
her in his hasty way. "Now he is talking of me," he thought, his whole
face burning. He rushed into the shade of the bushes when