CHAPTER XVI.
IF for me there is a dearer creature on earth, I am a pickled herring.
They say that we artists do everything under the first impression of the moment; that is not true! for it seems that I loved Eva long ago, only I was ass enough not to see it. God alone knows what took place in me while I attended her home that evening. We went hand in hand, without speaking. From moment to moment I pressed Eva's arm to my side, and she pressed mine. I felt that she loved me with all her power.
I conducted her upstairs, and when we were in her little drawing-room, the position became in some way so awkward for us that we didn't dare to look into each other's eyes. But when Eva covered her face with her hands, I removed them gently and said,—
"Evus, thou art mine, is it not true?"
And she nestled up to me.
"I am, I am."
She was so beautiful, her eyes were drowsy, and at the same time gleaming, there was such a sweet weariness in her whole posture that I could not break away from her.
And in truth she could not break from me; she wished, as it were, to reward herself for continued silence, and for such a long-concealed feeling.
I returned home late. Antek was not sleeping yet; he was drawing by lamplight, on wood, for one of the illustrated papers.