"Well—hurt you in any way."
"Ah, I am sure you would never do that."
He was silent, and looked at the spray of roses.
"Sit down and spin," he said impatiently. "I am ashamed to see you stand there, and a woman never looks so well as when she spins. Sit down, and I will eat the good things you have brought me. But I cannot if you stand and look."
"I beg your pardon. I did not know," she said, ashamed lest she should have seemed rude to him; and she drew out her wheel under the light of the lattice, and sat down to it, and began to disentangle the threads.
It was a pretty picture—the low, square casement; the frame of ivy, the pink and white of the climbing sweet-peas: the girl's head; the cool, wet leaves: the old wooden spinning-wheel, that purred like a sleepy cat.
"I want to paint you as Gretchen, only it will be a shame." he said.
"Who is Gretchen?"
"You shall read of her by-and-by. And you live here all by yourself?"
"Since Antoine died—yes."