Dick's heart leaped at this sign of confidence. "Begin anywhere it's easiest," he said, "and don't begin at all unless you want to."
"I do want to. At least I think you ought to know. It isn't fair to you not to tell."
"Fire away then," Dick cried cheerfully. "I hope it means that there's something for me to do. Isn't there a cruel father who needs to be hunted in his lair, or an unforgiving sister who is as ugly as you are beautiful whom I can melt with my pleadings? Don't have a fortune anywhere for I want to do everything for you myself."
"No," Hertha said, making a vain attempt to laugh, "there isn't anything like that."
"Whatever there is," Dick's voice trembled in his earnestness, "it can't make any difference to me. I couldn't love you any more, and there isn't any possible thing that could make me love you less."
His shaking voice and the intensity of his speech made Hertha unconsciously draw away. Always hurt by his passion, she stopped for a moment wondering if she were not making a mistake, if she should not leave before it was too late with everything unsaid. But as she looked down the long street the loneliness of a life by herself made her keep her resolve. Holding herself tense she walked quietly by the man's side.
They were under the arc-light that flooded the entrance to the park. Large trees rose about them, their branches meeting overhead. To the right and left small paths wound among the shrubbery to disappear in the darkness. The air was sweet with the fragrance of syringa and honeysuckle and of the fresh, warm earth.
"Shall we walk a little way?" Dick said. "It's jolly hot, isn't it?" fumbling at his stiff collar. "Girls have the bulge on a man this weather when it comes to clothes."
Hertha had intended going to the lake, but the way looked so lonely, so apart from the city lights and sounds, that she shrank from taking one of the paths. "Don't you want to smoke?" she asked. "I'd like to talk with you when you're enjoying your cigar."
The young man laughed and started to comply with her request, but for the first time that evening a breeze sprang up and extinguished his match. With an exclamation of annoyance he moved out of the light into the shrubbery searching in his pocket for a second match. Hertha still stood in the broad light of the road.