We foolish boys stood about and stared at her.
The desire to help her waxed in us to the intensity of madness. But when pouting she stretched out her helpless arms at us, we recoiled as before an evil spirit. Not one of us found the courage simply to accept the superhuman bliss for which he had been hungering by day and night for months.
Then suddenly—at an awful curve—she caught her foot, stumbled, wavered first forward and then backward and finally fell into the arms of the most diffident and impassioned of us all.
And that was I.
Yes, that was I. To this day my fists are clenched with rage at the thought that it might have been another.
Among those who remained behind as I led her away in triumph there was not one who could not have slain me with a calm smile.
Under the impact of the words which she wasted upon my unworthy self, I cast down my eyes, smiling and blushing. Then I taught her how to set her feet and showed off my boldest manoeuvres. I also told her that I was a student in my second semester and that it was my ambition to be a poet.
"Isn't that sweet?" she exclaimed. "I suppose you write poetry already?"
I certainly did. I even had a play in hand which treated of the fate of the troubadour Bernard de Ventadours in rhymeless, irregular verse.
"Is there a part for me in it?" she asked.