"Ah!" cried I, "do you know her? She told you about it? Why doesn't she let me see her? Is her name Hermine?"
And almost before I knew it, I had told her the whole story of my passion for my invisible neighbor.
Thérèse pouted, and turned her back. She put her handkerchief to her face, and called me all sorts of hard names for having brought her there to listen to the confession of my love for another; and turned a deaf ear, or I thought she did, to my expostulations and my protestations that I didn't really care for Hermine,—that it was only a passing fancy, more curiosity than anything else,—and that I really loved no one but her.
She began to relent at last, though I was half inclined to be sorry, for her resentment became her even better than her good-humor.
"Well," she said, finally, "it is too tiresome to quarrel, and I will forgive; for, although you say you have never seen Hermine,—(that is a prettier name than Thérèse, isn't it?)—she has, perhaps, seen you, and may really love you "—
"But I don't love her," I cried. "I don't want to love her. I don't want to see her. Her name isn't Hermine, I know. I will never think of her again, nor make a fool of myself by putting nose-gays into her keyhole, if you will only not look so sober any more."
"She will be very sorry for that, I am sure," returned Thérèse, with a smile I could not translate; "and she will miss them very much. I judge her by myself. I always find a bunch at my door when I go home at night"—
"You! You find flowers at your door? And who puts them there?" And I took my turn at being provoked. "You haven't used me fairly, Thérèse, to make me understand all this time that you cared for no one but me. There is some one, then, whom you love and who loves you?"
"Oh, yes!" she answered, her whole face beaming with a pleasure which made me feel like committing a murder or a suicide; "oh, yes! I believe he does; he has almost told me so. And—and I know that I do. But he is so droll! He is my next-door neighbor, and has never seen me yet, and has never tried to, I believe; but he leaves a bunch of flowers at my door every evening, and calls me—Hermine."
"Hermine! You Hermine? Hurrah!"