"Yes, dear. I don't know everything, but I knew that, and I arrived here just as you entered this room, and the moment you sat down to the piano I stole in on tip-toe, and stood behind you."
Renée opened her large eyes with mingled astonishment and awe, and paused in thought.
"Will you always love me, Henri? Even when I am old and wrinkled?" she suddenly exclaimed, as if the thought of possessing him was too good to be true.
"To the eyes of real love, dear, the loved one never becomes old or wrinkled," he replied gravely.
"But will you love me very much?"
"That depends on you as well, Renée," said the professor, amused at her question. "Don't you know that Italian saying which I think is attributed to Goldoni, 'Amor solo d'amor si pasce,' 'Love feeds on love and increases by exchange'? However, let us be happy for this one short hour at any rate," he added slowly with a sigh.
"Why do you sigh?" she asked, looking alarmed.
"Have you then so soon forgotten what I told you?"
Of course she remembered the words. But what did they mean?