"If only I could make him change his opinion," she thought, "and think better of me again!"
The only thing that occurred to her was to gather a nosegay of all the most beautiful wild-flowers she could reach.
With downcast eyes, she offered him the nosgay as a parting souvenir instead of that other gift of which she now could not think without feeling a fool.
He thanked her with a courtly bow and a flourish of the bamboo cane with the silver knob, an heirloom, of which he had only just come into possession.
Lilly was too depressed and humiliated to utter a word.
"Doesn't something tell you," he asked, "that we shall meet again sometime in the future?"
She turned aside; it was all she could do to suppress the tears that rose to her eyes.
"If we do," he went on, "I hope I shall prove to you what incessant work and unwavering loyalty to one's convictions can accomplish, even without money."
His voice now vibrated with gleeful self-confidence and importance.
It seemed almost as if, in reducing her to a state of insignificance and despair, he had imbibed something of her former gay courage. When, however, they drew near the old market-place, he became exceedingly uneasy again, as he looked up and down the streets. They were very full now, he remarked; it would be better if they parted here, and pursued their way home by different roads.