She walked toward the long windows at the back of the room, the windows which overlooked the garden, and pulling them open, stepped out onto the balcony. The vine there being in bloom, her figure was framed with the soft purple of the flowers, which, lit by the light from within and pendant against the black background of night, might well have been blossoms embroidered on Japanese black satin. With my head swimming, I watched the movement of her bare shoulders, from which her modest scarf had half fallen, until she turned to enter again.
“I shall not tell you that I am sorry that you have spoken as you have,” she said, spacing her words so evenly that it gave the impression at first that she was repeating memorized sentences. “But I am young and no one else has ever done so. Perhaps I should have interrupted you and told you that my duty is toward my father, and that I am not sure of myself now, and that I am not ready to give myself to any other life. If this is true, it can profit neither of us to talk of love.”
“Neither of us!” Again it seemed to me that she had disclosed herself. I stood before her and in a voice that shook with eagerness, I said, “You love me. At least you love me a little?”
She drew back.
“You do!” I cried under my breath. “I know it! You do!”
She raised her hands as if to keep me from her, and still retreated toward the hearth.
“You love me!” I said. The sound of my own voice was raising a madness within me. “Say it!” I cried. “Say it!”
She turned quickly away from me.
“No,” she said. “I do not—love—you!”