"Is it in my power to grant?" asked she.
"It is the rose in your hair."
"Oh, is that all?" said she, simply. "I had forgotten it was there,—it can scarcely be fresh now." And she untwisted the stem of the white flower from her snood and threw it playfully into his hands.
"The day has already come to a close for us," said Waldstein, with a significant glance at his friend. "You know, Wolfgang, I must be back in Strasburg to-morrow morning."
"Well, then, our holiday is over," assented Goethe, with a sigh. "We will go to the house and take leave of all our kind entertainers."
As they were returning to the parsonage, he found occasion to whisper to Alide, "Your wonderful goodness to me prompts me to one question more: May I interpret as I please your generosity about the rose?"
"It means only one thing," said Alide, in a tremulous and almost inaudible voice, while her face grew deadly pale, and she laid her hand upon his arm. He seized it in his own, and kissed it passionately without speaking.
Two hours later, he and his friend, after a silent walk across the meadows, entered their quarters for the night, at the Drusenheim inn.
CHAPTER VI
FIRST LOVE
Far different had it been from the sunny stroll which they had enjoyed the previous day. The seemingly harmless clouds that had overhung the mountains since morning had now accumulated in threatening masses, and rolled in huge gray vapors over all the heavens. A wet, penetrating mist overspread the earth, and a chill wind that smelt already of the rain blew drearily, now and then shaking down showers of condensed moisture from the faded trees. As the two friends advanced, night came on so suddenly that more than once they strayed from the path and were obliged to retrace their footsteps. Goethe felt a grapple at his heart which led his thoughts incessantly backward. At the last moment, when he was taking leave in the porch, Alide had been sent by her father to fetch the plans for the rebuilding of the manse, which Goethe had offered to take with him to Strasburg.