‘A great deal’s not wanted, but.…’ ‘Tell me what I ought to read? Tell me what I ought to do. I will do everything you tell me,’ she added, turning to me with innocent confidence. I could not at once find a reply. ‘You won’t be dull with me, though?’ ‘What nonsense,’ I was beginning.… ‘All right, thanks!’ Acia put in; ‘I was thinking you would be bored.’ And her little hot hand clasped mine warmly. ‘N!’ Gagin cried at that instant; ‘isn’t that background too dark?’ I went up to him. Acia got up and went away. XII She came back in an hour, stood in the doorway and beckoned to me. ‘Listen,’ she said; ‘if I were to die, would you be sorry?’ ‘What ideas you have to-day!’ I exclaimed. ‘I fancy I shall die soon; it seems to me sometimes as though everything about me were saying good-bye. It’s better to die than live like this.… Ah! don’t look at me like that; I’m not pretending, really. Or else I shall begin to be afraid of you again.’ ‘Why, were you afraid of me?’ ‘If I am queer, it’s really not my fault,’ she rejoined. ‘You see, I can’t even laugh now.…’ She remained gloomy and preoccupied till evening. Something was taking place in her; what, I did not understand. Her eyes often rested upon me; my heart slowly throbbed under her enigmatic gaze. She appeared composed, and yet as I watched her I kept wanting to tell her not to let herself get excited. I admired her, found a touching charm in her pale face, her hesitating, slow movements, but she for some reason fancied I was out of humour. ‘Let me tell you something,’ she said to me not long before parting; ‘I am tortured by the idea that you consider me frivolous.… For the future believe what I say to you, only do you, too, be open with me; and I will always tell you the truth, I give you my word of honour.…’ This ‘word of honour’ set me laughing again. ‘Oh, don’t laugh,’ she said earnestly, ‘or I shall say to you to-day what you said to me yesterday, “why are you laughing?”’ and after a brief silence she added, ‘Do you remember you spoke yesterday of “wings”?… My wings have grown, but I have nowhere to fly.’ ‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘all the ways lie open before you.…’ Acia looked at me steadily, straight in the face. ‘You have a bad opinion of me to-day,’ she said, frowning. ‘I? a bad opinion of you!…’ ‘Why is it you are both so low-spirited,’ Gagin interrupted me--‘would you like me to play a waltz, as I did yesterday?’ ‘No, no,’ replied Acia, and she clenched her hands; ‘not to-day, not for anything!’ ‘I’m not going to force you to; don’t excite yourself.’ ‘Not for anything!’ she repeated, turning pale. * * * * * ‘Can it be she’s in love with me?’ I thought, as I drew near the dark rushing waters of the Rhine. XIII