"I thought so half an hour ago."
"Ah, well, the evening has been a strange one, hasn't it?"
"Let's walk down to the river through the woods," said I. "I'll put you across to Waldenweiter."
He acquiesced, and I put my arm through his. Presently he said in a low voice:
"The dance, the wine, the night."
"Yes, yes, I know," I cried. "My God, I knew even when I spoke to her. She saw that a brute asked her, not a man."
"Perhaps, perhaps not; they don't see everything. She shrank from you?"
"The tears were very ready."
"Ah, those tears! Heavens, why have we no such appeals? What matter, though? You don't love her."
"Do you want me to call myself a brute again? Wetter, any other girl would have been free to tell me that I was a brute."