‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘I do not mean to be bad, though I believe it is very easy, and one does not always know it, when one is.’
‘I should think one would know it oneself sooner than any one else,’ answered Greif. ‘But if I find out that you are bad, Hilda, I promise to tell you so.’
‘Seriously?’
‘I do not run any risk. What children we are, Hilda! And how pleasant it is to be children together, on a day like this, in a year like this, with such a creature as you, sweetheart!’
‘We cannot always be children,’ she answered. ‘Will it be very different then, I wonder? Will there be any change, except the good change of loving more than now?’
‘I do not see why there should be. Even if that never came, would it not be enough, as it is?’
‘Love must grow, Greif. I feel that. A love that does not grow is already beginning to die.’
‘Who told you so many things of love, Hilda?’
‘Who told me?’ she repeated, as the quick fire flashed in her eyes. ‘Do I need to be told, to know? Ah, Greif, if you felt what I feel—here—’ she pressed her hand to her side, ‘you would understand that I need no telling, nor ever shall. You are there, dear, there in the midst of my heart, more really even than you are before my eyes.’
‘You are more eloquent than I, sweetheart,’ said Greif. ‘You leave me nothing to say, except always to repeat what you have said.’