He begged her to sit down and warm herself, but she said she was not cold.
"Why, in spite of the warmth of the room you were cold as ice!"
"Oh, I am always that way. Winter and summer my flesh is chilly."
He thought that in August this frigid body might be agreeable, but now!
He offered her some bonbons, which she refused, then she said she would take a sip of the alkermes, which he poured into a tiny silver goblet. She took just a drop, and amicably they discussed the taste of this preparation, in which she recognized an aroma of clove, tempered by flower of cinnamon moistened with distillate of rose water.
Then he became silent.
"My poor dear," she said, "how I should love him if he were more confiding and not always on his guard."
He asked her to explain herself.
"Why, I mean that you can't forget yourself and simply let yourself be loved. Alas, you were reasoning all the time—"
"I was not!"