"As what?" she asked.
He had come half-prepared to speak of his love, and there was about her face to-day a curious half-forlorn puzzled look which made him feel inclined to take her in his arms and kiss it away--"As a remembrance of you, naturally," he replied.
She sat down on the nearest stone feeling just a little dizzy, and clasping her hands across her knees stared out at the pale blue misty valley, and the pale blue winter sky beyond.
"But why should you want something to remember me by?" she said slowly. "I shall always remember you without anything."
Her freedom from conventional cloakings in speech was at all times a trifle disconcerting, and he felt inclined to reply "That is very kind of you," or make some other banal remark of the sort which might bring convention back. Then he cursed himself for a low beast, and followed her unconsciousness as closely as he could.
"Perhaps I wanted to remember the exact words you said," he suggested.
"But you do remember them," she answered aggrievedly; "that is what I complain of. You remember every little thing I say--and it is most uncomfortable. I cannot think why you should."
He took his fate in his hand. "Can't you--I can----. It is because I happen to love you."
She sat still for a second, then turned and looked at him with narrowing eyes. "I don't see what that has to do with it! You knew what I was thinking about the very first time we met, and you could not possibly have been in love with me then."
Her seriousness made him laugh outright. It was the most delicious piece of comedy to be sitting there talking of his love as if it did not belong to him, while his pulses--stay! were they bounding, or had they quieted down to a curious content?