"We have considered for six months."
"Over the garden wall, in words which were only half understood; in letters, which never say what we mean to say. That is nothing. You must give me an appointment, for which I have so often asked. Shall my hand never rest in yours, my lips never touch yours? And you ask for proofs of my love!"
She looked at him with a side glance, gazed into his beautiful, light-brown, nervous eyes. Two more beautiful, two darker eyes, had looked at her an hour before with passionate fervor; she had resisted them, but she did not resist these. Her eyelids dropped. "I cannot do it," she stammered.
"Say: 'I do not wish to do it.' I have made countless proposals. I asked to be presented to your brother at the club, recently. He was delighted to make my acquaintance—gave me a pressing invitation to call upon him—to see his pictures. How easily we could meet there!"
"I am not allowed to visit my brother—have not been allowed to do so for a long time—and now, since last evening!"
"Then your cousin! He will surely come to see us; I shall return his call—your father certainly cannot show me the door!"
"I have thought of that, and prepared him for it. It would, in any case, be only a few minutes."
"Then I shall consider farther; if I only know that you wish it, I shall find a way and write you, or rather tell you as soon as you give the sign."
"I no longer dare to do it."
"Why not?"