Evening after evening they sat there later and later. The acquaintance ripened to its inevitable conclusion—the conclusion the Prince had counted on from the first.
One evening she stood in the darkness with her cheek pressed against the wall at the corner of her balcony nearest to him; he looked over and downward at her.
"It cannot be. It cannot be," she said, with a frightened quaver in her voice, but a quaver which the Prince recognised, with his large experience, as the tone of yielding.
"It must be," he whispered down to her. "It was ordained from the first. It has to be."
The girl was weeping silently.
"It is impossible," she said at last. "My servant sleeps outside my door. Even if she did not know, your servant would, and there would be gossip—and scandal. It is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," cried the Prince eagerly, "where true love exists. I shall lock my door, and Pietro shall know nothing about it. He never comes unless I call him. I will get a rope and throw it to your balcony. Lock you your door as I do mine. In the darkness nothing is seen."
"No, no," she murmured. "That would not do. You could not climb back again, and all would be lost."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried the young man eagerly. "It is nothing to climb back." He was about to add that he had done it frequently before, but he checked himself in time.
For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "I cannot risk your not getting back. It must be certain. If you get a rope—a strong rope—and put a loop in it for your foot, and pass the other end of the rope to me around the staunchest railing of your balcony, I will let you down to the level of my own. Then you can easily swing yourself within reach. If you find you cannot climb back, I can help you, by pulling on the rope and you will ascend as you came down."