He laughed. “I know one poem,” he said.
“Tell it to me.”
He recited:
“Je vous aime,
Je vous adore,
Que voulez-vous encore?”
She turned to look full in his face, her lovely, childish eyes alight with mischief. “It is not a poem,” she said; “it is a declaration.”
“Exactly,” he said, half seriously.
“Oh no, no, no! You do not love me.... It ees not possible. No. You do not know me enough yet.”
Without thought he made the leap. “Of course I do. How could I help it?... Don’t you love me?” He talked to her as he would talk to a child.