“I am sorry for you,” he said in the gentlest of voices, as he happed my shawl more closely around me. “And you are cold too—shivering. My coat must do duty again.”
“No, no!” cried I. “Keep it! I won’t have it.”
“Yes you will, because you can’t help it if I make you,” he answered as he wrapped it round me.
“Well, please take part of it. At least wrap half of it round you,” I implored, “or I shall be miserable.”
“Pray don’t. No, keep it! It is not like charity—it has not room for many sins at once.”
“Do you mean you or me?” I could not help asking.
“Are we not all sinners?”
I knew it would be futile to resist, but I was not happy in the new arrangement, and I touched his coat-sleeve timidly.
“You have quite a thin coat,” I remonstrated, “and I have a winter dress, a thick jacket, and a shawl.”
“And my coat, und doch bist du—oh, pardon! and you are shivering in spite of it,” said he, conclusively.