“Your foulard gown? The one I like so much?”
“But do you know why he wanted me to?”
“Of course I do.”
She trembled.
I continued, as I took out my handkerchief and flicked the dust from one of my boots:
“Of course I know. Isn’t to-day a great festival?”
“Ah,” she replied as she withdrew the hand I was holding, “you understand nothing! What an indifferent and non-understanding man you are!”
Indifferent? I understood everything from her look and her emotion, and with a calmness which I was certainly far from feeling I bent down and dusted the other boot.
“The old man has come, Irinel——” I said, glancing at her for a moment.
She was white, her lower lip quivered, the light in her eyes had darkened.