"How sensitive you are! I would have thought that we two were beyond the plane of common politeness, at least as far as I am concerned."
She puts down the pen, and sitting down on the little sofa in the cosey corner, motions him to an armchair.
"I have a confidence for you, Fräulein," murmurs Nikolai.
"I thought so," replies Nita. Over her finely chiselled white face trembles something like a difficultly suppressed smile.
"It is so hard," he continues. "Will you not help me a little?"
"No," says she, energetically. "I have not the slightest wish to assist your awkward circumlocutions." And with friendly playfulness she adds: "How can one find so hard something which is so easy?"
How cordially and unconstrainedly she looks at him!
An uneasy sensation takes possession of him.
"So easy!" murmurs he, hoarsely. "Do you find it so easy to ask a question on whose answer depends the happiness of our whole life?"
"If one can be so sure of the answer," says she, still playfully, mockingly, but very good-naturedly.