“No!” she whispered. “No!”
“Alors! You will not be able to say that again!” he said firmly, bending towards her. But though his eyes held hers with the intentness of a hawk, he waited for her answering surrender. She startled him by the urgency of her protest. “Oh, don’t! Don’t!” she pleaded. “Please let me go!” Instantly he released her.
“You don’t like me enough?” he asked her in surprise. “Do you think I am such a brute that I would kiss you against your will? Why, never in the world! That is no kiss, that is not a mutual pleasure. But why do you say ‘No’ to me, Rose?--for your eyes--your eyes say ‘Yes’!”
“Oh, no!” she answered quickly. “I know you wouldn’t do anything I shouldn’t like, but don’t you see I can’t let you--it’s just because I--I do like you so much.” She turned her face away from him, her eyes filled suddenly with tears. “Please don’t say any more,” she urged. “I know with you it’s different--please go away.”
But Léon sat down near her. “I will do anything in the world you want,” he said firmly, “except go away. After what you have said you cannot expect me to do that. You must listen to me a little now--are you listening, Rose?”
She nodded her head.
“I am going to say something that will give you pain,” Léon began slowly. “I had not meant to say it, I had meant, if I were fortunate enough, to give you pleasure, but when you say you like me you make me feel that I must not be a coward. Rose--I am a bad man.”
She turned startled, unbelieving eyes upon him. What he said was painful to her, but she had been expecting a different kind of pain.
“Yes,” he said gravely. “It is true. I am not in the least worth your regard. I do not think I shall make a good husband even for you. I say this to you because I am going to add the little thing I had hoped might give you pleasure. Je vous aime, Mademoiselle.” The words had a sharper significance in his own tongue. After he had said them he looked for the first time away from her, towards the almond blossom tree. “You are as fine, as beautiful as that tree,” he murmured, “and oh, my dear, you know as little--as these frail pink flowers--about a man like me. How can I ask you to trust me?”
Fear crept into her eyes. “Léon,” she whispered, “what you said just now was true, wasn’t it?”