Then Beatrice asked him, "Who are you who risked your life for my rose?"
Dante answered her: "I am named Dante Alighieri. Yesterday I was nobody. To-day I would not change places with the Emperor, since I declare myself your servant."
Beatrice smiled a smile of sweet content, and I could see that she was both amused and pleased. "I am glad we are old friends," she said, "for so it was not unmaidenly of me to speak to you, but indeed I was grieved to think I had put you in peril. I did not think what I did when I threw you that flower. I only felt that we were children again, you and I. Forgive me."
"It was a happy peril," Dante declared, gladly.
Again Beatrice said him farewell and turned to go, and again Dante stayed her, and when she had paused he looked as if he knew not what to say; but at last he questioned, "When may we meet again?"
Beatrice answered him gravely. "Florence is not so wide a world that you should fear to lose sight of a friend."
Once more she made as if she would join her companion maidens, but as she did so Dante looked all about him with an air of great surprise, and I heard him say: "How dark the air grows. I fear an eclipse."
Beatrice, pausing in her path, cried to him, marvelling, "Why, the sun is at its brightest."
Dante shook his head. "I do not find it so when you are leaving me."
Then I think that Beatrice looked half alarmed and half diverted at the way of Dante's speech, and I heard her say, "Is not the spring of our friendship something too raw for such ripeness of compliment?"