I stopped instantly. Her words sounded so terrified, so helpless, I was struck to the heart. She meant to offer me a compensation by giving me leave to kiss her breast! How charming, how charmingly naïve. I could have fallen down and knelt before her. “But, dear pretty one,” I said, completely bewildered, “I don’t understand ... I really can’t conceive what sort of a game this is....” She rose, lit the candle again with trembling hands. I leant back on the sofa and did nothing. What would happen now? I was in reality very ill at ease. She cast a look over at the clock on the wall, and started. “Ugh, the girl will soon come now!” she said; this was the first thing she said. I took the hint, and rose. She took up her jacket as if to put it on, bethought herself, and let it lie, and went over to the fireplace. So that it should not appear as if she had shown me the door, I said: “Was your father in the army?” and at the same time I prepared to leave. “Yes; he was an officer. How did you know?” “I didn’t know; it just came into my head.” “That was odd.” “Ah, yes; there were some places I came to where I got a kind of presentiment. Ha, ha!--a part of my insanity, eh?” She looked quickly up, but didn’t answer. I felt I worried her with my presence, and determined to make short work of it. I went towards the door. Would she not kiss me any more now? not even give me her hand? I stood and waited. “Are you going now, then?” she said, and yet she remained quietly standing over near the fireplace. I did not reply. I stood humbly in confusion, and looked at her without saying anything. Why hadn’t she left me in peace, when nothing was to come of it? What was the matter with her now? It didn’t seem to put her out that I stood prepared to leave. She was all at once completely lost to me, and I searched for something to say to her in farewell--a weighty, cutting word that would strike her, and perhaps impress her a little. And in the face of my first resolve, hurt as I was, instead of being proud and cold, disturbed and offended, I began right off to talk of trifles. The telling word would not come; I conducted myself in an exceedingly aimless fashion. Why couldn’t she just as well tell me plainly and straightly to go my way? I queried. Yes, indeed, why not? There was no need of feeling embarrassed about it. Instead of reminding me that the girl would soon come home, she could have simply said as follows: “Now you must run, for I must go and fetch my mother, and I won’t have your escort through the street.” So it was not that she had been thinking about? Ah, yes; it was that all the same she had thought about; I understood that at once. It did not require much to put me on the right track; only, just the way she had taken up her jacket, and left it down again, had convinced me immediately. As I said before, I had presentiments; and it was not altogether insanity that was at the root of it....