“No,” she replied and looked down. “No; God knows it wasn’t. I didn’t even think about it.” “Listen,” said I; “you are evidently sitting here labouring under the delusion that I can dress and live exactly as I choose, aren’t you? And that is just what I can’t do; I am very, very poor.” She looked at me. “Are you?” she queried. “Yes, worse luck, I am.” After an interval. “Well, gracious, so am I, too,” she said, with a cheerful movement of her head. Every one of her words intoxicated me, fell on my heart like drops of wine. She enchanted me with the trick she had of putting her head a little on one side, and listening when I said anything, and I could feel her breath brush my face. “Do you know,” I said, “that ... but, now, you mustn’t get angry--when I went to bed last night I settled this arm for you ... so ... as if you lay on it ... and then I went to sleep.” “Did you? That was lovely!” A pause. “But of course it could only be from a distance that you would venture to do such a thing, for otherwise....” “Don’t you believe I could do it otherwise?” “No, I don’t believe it.” “Ah, from me you may expect everything,” I said, and I put my arm around her waist. “Can I?” was all she said. It annoyed me, almost wounded me, that she should look upon me as being so utterly inoffensive. I braced myself up, steeled my heart, and seized her hand; but she withdrew it softly, and moved a little away from me. That just put an end to my courage again; I felt ashamed, and looked out through the window. I was, in spite of all, in far too wretched a condition; I must, above all, not try to imagine myself any one in particular. It would have been another matter if I had met her during the time that I still looked like a respectable human being--in my old, well-off days when I had sufficient to make an appearance; and I felt fearfully downcast! “There now, one can see!” she said, “now one can just see one can snub you with just the tiniest frown--make you look sheepish by just moving a little away from you” ... she laughed, tantalizingly, roguishly, with tightly-closed eyes, as if she could not stand being looked at, either. “Well, upon my soul!” I blurted out, “now you shall just see,” and I flung my arms violently around her shoulders. I was mortified. Was the girl out of her senses? Did she think I was totally inexperienced! Ha! Then I would, by the living.... No one should say of me that I was backward on that score. The creature was possessed by the devil himself! If it were only a matter of going at it, well.... She sat quite quietly, and still kept her eyes closed; neither of us spoke. I crushed her fiercely to me, pressed her body greedily against my breast, and she spoke never a word. I heard her heart’s beat, both hers and mine; they sounded like hurrying hoof-beats. I kissed her.