His throat contracted, he felt that he was about to lose control of himself.
"Shall I play?" he asked. "I will do it willingly for you."
"Oh, no! Why should you play to those stupid people in there?" replied she. "I would be prepared to hear, in the middle of the G minor concerto, the question: 'Before I forget it, can you not give me the address of a good shoemaker in Rome?' You know how such things vex me."
"Is she coquetting with me, or--?" he asked himself again.
She stood before him with her enchanting face, and her tender glance met his. She did not know that she tormented him. In spite of her twenty-one years, she had the boundless innocence of a girl whose mind has never been desecrated by the knowledge of passion, a degree of innocence in which men do not believe.
"Is she coquetting?" His heart beat to bursting, and suddenly, when she quite unconstrainedly came one step nearer him, he took her hand. "Oh, you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely audible voice, and pressed it to his lips.
"Oh, you dear, dear girl!" he murmured, with hoarse, scarcely audible voice, and pressed it to his lips.
Crimsoning. She tore away her hand. p. 61.
Crimsoning, she tore away her hand. "For Heaven's sake, what are you thinking of?" said she, and started back with a proud, almost scornful gesture.