“Alas! poor Ameyric!” he assented. “You must think that I am made of stone, Nicolette, or you would not tease me so.”
“I?” she exclaimed, genuinely astonished: “I tease you? How?”
But Ameyric had not a great power of expressing himself. Just now he looked shy, awkward, and mumbled haltingly:
“By—by being you—yourself—so lovely—so fresh—then kissing that flower. You must know that it makes me mad!” he added almost roughly. He tried to capture her hand; but she succeeded in freeing it, and flung the twig away.
“Poor Ameyric,” she reiterated with a sigh.
He had already darted after the flower and, kneeling, he picked it up and pressed it to his lips. She looked down on his eager, flushed face, and there crept a soft, almost motherly look in her eyes.
“If you only knew,” he said moodily, “how it hurts!”
“Just now you wished me to know how good it was to love,” she riposted lightly.
“That is just the trouble, Nicolette,” the lad assented, and rose slowly to his feet; “it is good but it also hurts; and when the loved one is unkind, or worse still, indifferent, then it is real hell!”
Then, as she said nothing, but stood quite still, her little head thrown back, breathing in the delicious scented air, which had become almost oppressive in its fragrance, he exclaimed passionately: