"I would sing of you, and of love. Of clematis with the snow-white flowers. For you are as the clematis, my love, sweet and beautiful as its blossoms, dear as its growth about the windows of a home—and deep, endlessly deep, as life itself."
"But that is just what you are doing, Olof—for all you say is like a poem and a song," answered the girl. "Sing for me again—and let me just sit here at your feet and listen."
"Ah, if only you could sit there always, as now. Clematis—how strange that I should meet you—when I never thought to meet with any flower again—saw only the yellow faded leaves of autumn everywhere around."
"Autumn … faded leaves…." The girl looked at him, timidly questioning. "Olof, don't be angry with me. But…. Have you loved others before? They say so many things about you."
The young man was silent a moment.
"Ay, there are many things to say, perhaps," he murmured sadly. "But you, Clematis—could you care for me; could you not love me altogether, if you knew I had loved another before?"
"No, no—'twas not meant so," said the girl hastily, touching his knee with a slight caress. "I was not thinking of myself…."
"But of…?"
They looked at each other in silence.
"Yes—I know what you mean. I can read it in your eyes." He laid one hand tenderly on the girl's head.