"I give you my word, I have only thought of you. I meant it ... I mean it, for the best."
She quickened her steps, and he saw that she was nervously worked up.
"No man can want to injure the woman he respects—as I respect you."
Her shoulders rose, in her own emotional way.
"But tell me one thing," he begged, as she walked inexorable before him. "Say it will matter a little to you if I go—that you will miss me—if ever so little ... Louise!"
"Miss you? What does it matter whether I miss you or not? It seems to me that counts least of all. You, at any rate, will have acted properly. You will have nothing to reproach yourself with.—Oh, I wouldn't be a man for anything on earth! You are all—all alike. I hate you and despise you—every one of you!"
They were within a few steps of the house. She pressed on, and, without looking back at him, or wishing him good-night, disappeared in the doorway.
XII.
It was a hot evening in June: the perfume of the lilac, now in fullest bloom, lay over squares and gardens like a suspended wave. The sun had gone down in a cloudless sky; an hour afterwards, the pavements were still warm to the touch, and the walls of the buildings radiated the heat they had absorbed. The high old houses in the inner town had all windows set open, and the occupants leaned out on their window-cushions, with continental nonchalance. The big garden-cafes were filled to the last scat. In the woods, the midges buzzed round people's heads in accompanying clouds; and streaks of treacherous white mist trailed, like fixed smoke, over the low-lying meadow-land.