Then the girl drew herself up straight, and, fixing her dark eyes full upon him, said in calm and measured tones, "If I give thee a good reason for having avoided thee, and for having endeavored to escape any such useless and unpleasant conversation as this one, will that suffice thee?" "Yea! if, indeed, the reason be a good one." "The reason, then, is this," she answered: "I do not love thee; I do not desire thy love; strange and incredible as it may seem to thee, I do not even admire thee in any way whatever, and thy profession of affection is irksome to me, and the more irksome the more thou dost insist upon my hearing thereof." "But thou wilt learn to love me, Theckla," he cried out vehemently, "and thou shalt give me some reasonable opportunity to win thy regard! Ah, I understand it perfectly. It is the fault of that old grand-uncle, who ought to have been ’the Osiris Justified’ half a century ago. He hath prejudiced thy heart against me, because he desireth thee to consume thy youth and brightness in ministering unto his desolate and selfish old age. But I swear by all the gods that, as soon as I return home, I will have thy nearer kindred take thee away from him, so that thou shalt take thy proper place among the maidens of thine own age and rank, and learn some more reasonable way of life, and some better views of duty and of happiness than his selfish and exacting age can teach thee! I see that thou art now blinded by this old man’s influence, and resolved against the course of reason and of nature; so for the present, fare thee well, Theckla, but remember that I love thee, and that thou shalt yet be mine own." Then the young man, trembling with rage and disappointment, fled from the house, and for many months the young girl saw no more of him.