"I never said I wouldn't, Felix; do please stop—Felix—dear Felix."
This time my heel went deep into the ice, grinding out its order to pull up. In a moment I was round to the front, on my knees to pick up one of the rugs that had got loose and was dragging. The footstool was half off, and poor Helene's little feet were exposed to the biting frost. They were just lumps of ice, and I felt very guilty, for it was all my zig-zagging and swinging about that had done it. "Wait a minute, I know what will warm them in no time. My fur gloves are the very thing."
And with that I popped one foot into each glove, and gave her the cord to hold that connected both, and that was usually slung round my neck.
"Oh, that is glorious!" she said, as the heat from my gloves, my heat, passed into her veins. "You are too kind, dear Mr.... I mean, my dear Felix. But you will want them yourself. You must take them back."
"Nonsense," I answered, as I tightened the gloves round her feet and tucked her up with the rug that had kindly played truant.
"But I am sure you will get your fingers frost-bitten."
"Not likely; you just look out they don't set the back of your sledge on fire."
And with that we started at a moderate pace. I was in no hurry to get home, and in fact we had to give the rest of the party time to come up with us.
Fancy having to sit down and prepare for to-morrow's mathematics and Virgil after that! This time I was one of the commentators, and marginal notes in the shape of initials and scribbled profiles got in where they shouldn't.
But on the whole I did not find that the new development interfered with my studies. It was rather the other way, for I felt it would be positively ignominious to be snubbed by a professor, a schoolmaster. I was filled with overweening self-confidence, and fired with ambition. The things I thought and planned! Just the things you would laugh at now that you know so much about love and love-making. You shouldn't laugh! Is not the boy's first budding love the very best bit of the Creator's work, the tenderest shoot He grafts on the old tree of life? Nature likes to hear her own voice as it comes truly and purely from the boy's lips, tired as she is of man's false vows. The boy's heart holds the divine spark of love, the same that will light the flame of his later days, only it is minus the bacilli that threaten to creep in, sooner or later, and crowd it with doubt and disappointment, or poison it with selfishness and passion. Nature, consistent as she is, repeats her processes wherever she is at work. For a while the rosebud remains closed, and is safe; then it opens its unsuspecting leaves, and in walks a wary worm and says, "This is just the place for me." The snow falls white, even in grimy cities—how soon to mingle with soot and dirt! The world changes, but the fountain source of all things remains pure; we can return to it, recuperate and restore ourselves in its waters; there alone we may find the mythical baths that, in olden days, promised health and youth. Harking back, we shall hear voices that once touched us, and may yet guide us.