"Ah, I wish you were not rich."
"I wish so too," said she, in a drowsy tone. "Let us be quiet. So—let me sleep here only half a minute. Oh, how like music is the beating of your heart!" She reclined her head for a few moments against his breast, and then said:—
"A hundred years have passed over me, a blissful hundred years. Now I am strong and fresh and wide-awake; now forget all I have done and said, all except one thing, that I am yours, and I love you so long as I breathe, and you are mine."
"You wanted to become a nun, and I—I wanted also to renounce the world."
"But are you not a Huguenot."
"I did not mean that, my Manna. I wanted to renounce what is called the world, and be wholly devoted to a life of thought."
"And can you not do that if I am yours?"
"No. But why speak of this now? I am no longer alone, I am myself and you too!"
"And I too am you as well as myself," repeated Manna. "Now I must go to my mother," she said, raising herself up; "no one is to know about us, neither your mother nor mine, no one."
"Shall I see you this evening in the garden?"