"Try and make me understand."
Still he was silent. Without changing his position he glanced at the open door of the boudoir. The Countess was invisible and inaudible. Guido could hear the young girl's soft and regular breathing, and he felt the pulse in his own throat. He knew that he must say something, and yet the only thing he could think of to say was that he loved her.
"Try and make me understand," she repeated. "I think you could."
He started and changed his position a little. He had been accustomed so long to the belief that if he spoke out frankly the thread of his intercourse with her would be broken, that he made a strong effort to get back to the ordinary tone of their conversation.
"Do you never say absurd things that have no meaning?" he asked, and tried to laugh.
"It was not what you said," Cecilia answered quietly. "It was the way you said it, as if you rather regretted saying that I am always the same. I should be sorry if you thought that an absurd speech."
"You know that I do not!" cried Guido, with a little indignation. "We understand each other so well, as a rule, but there is something you will never understand, I am afraid."
"That is just what I wish you would explain," replied the young girl, unmoved.
"Are you in earnest?" Guido asked, suddenly turning his face to her.
"Of course. We are such good friends that it is a pity there should ever be the least little bit of misunderstanding between us."