Then he kissed her hands.
“Forgive me,” he said, contritely, “I have not meant it so. There in the trees, when you were unconscious, I did not kiss you, I did not touch even your hair,—not thirty men in all Germany had been so good as that. You see what I try to be for you.”
He was leaning over her, the blood seemed to be boiling up into her ears. She put up her hand:
“If you speak so,” she said, “I shall faint again; I get dizzy when you talk to me in that way.”
“But if I kiss you only once,” he whispered.
“No—no—no,” she reiterated, and raised her hand and pushed his lips away with it.
“En effet vous n’êtes pas du tout gentille,” he cried, in violent anger, for his moods knew no shading in their transposition from one to another; “you are cold and without heart. How long do you think that I stood there in the wet and hold you back from the mud, and now you will do nothing for me; and you were quite heavy too, and—oh, mon Dieu!” he exclaimed sharply, interrupting himself, “my umbrella!”
“Have you lost it?”
“Have I lost it? Naturally I have let it fall to upraise you, and now I have leave it there.”
“I will give you another,” she said pacifically.