“Even you hate me,” he burst out.
He turned his face away.
“What makes you say such things?” she demanded.
“I can see it. You don’t act toward me as you do toward—” he tossed his head without completing the sentence.
“As I do toward Rudolph,” she finished it for him with a light laugh. Then she gazed at him for a moment and, shaking her head, said, “You silly boy.”
“I don’t blame you—Rudolph is a shrewd business man and I am only a clerk in your father’s bank—”
“So you think I am in love with Rudolph—”
“I know you hate me—”
“Why should I hate you?”
Her sparring with him cheered him even though his face was still sad. He was happy to hear her contradict him. They soon drifted to “Herman and Dorothea” and he began to talk of Goethe. He wished to read her the poem he had just finished but he wondered if she would divine who had inspired it. He persuaded himself he did not want her to know this. And while he was battling with the idea his hand traveled to his pocket and he withdrew the neatly copied verses.