She said nothing--I said nothing. The atmosphere grew heavier. The gravel crunched under our tread, the bees buzzed about the spiræa bushes. Nothing else to be heard far or near. She clung to my arm quite confidentially, and every now and then made me stop when she pulled out a weed or plucked a piece of mignonette to tickle her nose with for an instant and then throw it away.
"I wish I loved flowers," she said. "There are so many people who love flowers, or say they love them. In love affairs you can never get at the truth."
"Why not?" I asked. "Don't you think it ever happens that two human beings like each other and say so--quite simply--without design or ulterior motives?"
"Like each other--like each other," she said tauntingly. "Are you such an icicle that you translate 'love' by 'like'?"
"Unfortunately, whether I am an icicle or not no longer matters," I answered.
"You're a noble-hearted man," she said, and looked at me sidewise, a bit coquettishly. "Everything you think comes out as straight as if shot from a pistol."
"But I know how to keep quiet, too," I said.
"Oh, I feel that," she answered hastily. "I could confide everything to you, everything." It seemed to me that she pressed my arm very gently.
"What does she want of you?" I asked myself, and I felt my heart beating in my throat.
At last we reached the arbour, an arbour of Virginia creeper, with those broad, pointed leaves which keep the sun out entirely. It's always night in arbours of Virginia creeper, you know.