“One would say that you were unhappy,” he commented. “Your eyes have a strange expression in them which I have noticed more than once before. What is the matter with you, Olga?”
She took him by the sleeve and drew him back into the shade.
“Are you aware,” she said with forced gaiety, “that I am hungry for supper?”
“No, no,” he protested. “Do not make a jest of this.”
“Unhappy, indeed?” she said reproachfully, halting in front of him. “Yes, I am unhappy—but only from excess of happiness.” So tender was her tone, and so caressing the note in her voice, that he bent down and kissed her.
With that she grew bolder. The jesting supposition that she could be unhappy inspired her to greater frankness.
“No, I am not ennuyée,” she went on; “nor should I ever be so. You know that well, yet you refuse to believe my words. Nor am I ill. It is merely that, that well, that sometimes a feeling of depression comes over me. You are a difficult man to conceal things from. Sometimes I feel depressed, though I could not say why.”
She laid her head upon his shoulder.
“Nevertheless, what is the reason of it?” he asked her gently as he bent over her.
“I do not know,” she repeated.