“Oh, but you must,” she cried, much alarmed.
“We are so happy; why can we not let this pleasure last?”
“You must go!” she reiterated with decision.
“We understand so well,” he went on, without noticing her words; “you understand, I understand. I wish nothing of you, I require nothing of you, only the friendship—only these good hours that we know together, only the joy of our sympathy. Why can I not be where you are everywhere? Warum nichts?”
“It isn’t possible!” she said firmly.
He turned about in his seat and called for the reckoning. After it was paid they went together back towards the hotel.
“You have told me that you will never marry again,” he said presently, “and I have told you that I also intend never. But—” he stopped short. The hotel court was there before them, and the scent of some night flowers came on the evening breeze from those beds of riotous color which fill the central space of the old Cloister.
“Let us walk once around the Kreuzgang,” he suggested, “and after that we will go in.”
She assented, and they followed the vivid outline of Constance’s history as portrayed in the large frescoes upon the inner wall of the vaulted passage.
“I do not breathe here,” he said suddenly; “come into the garden with me once again. But for a moment? I beg—I pray!”