I thought when I had said this and pressed my lips to the back of her hand and looked up at her again that her face was illuminated with wonder, joy, and supreme gladness, and that her eyes were filled with light reflected from some bright revelation. What, then, was my astonishment to observe that, as I looked, the color seemed to fade from her skin, her parted lips slowly compressed themselves, her eyelids fell like those of one who suffered pain or shuts out some repulsive sight! It may have been my imagination; but I was sure I felt her hand turn cold in mine and draw away as if to escape a menace. Her body stiffened as if preparing for effort or defense and she arose from her seat and stood before me. So little did I understand the significance of her actions that I neither moved nor spoke. She came toward me then and placed the tips of her fingers upon my shoulder affectionately, I can say--as she might have touched her father, and as if she meant to cause some unsaid thing to flow through the contact into my body. "Please do not get up," she said softly. "Do not follow me." There was strength in that command. She walked toward the long windows at the back of the room, the windows which overlooked the garden, and pulling them open, stepped out onto the balcony. The vine there being in bloom, her figure was framed with the soft purple of the flowers, which, lit by the light from within and pendant against the black background of night, might well have been blossoms embroidered on Japanese black satin. With my head swimming, I watched the movement of her bare shoulders, from which her modest scarf had half fallen, until she turned to enter again. "I shall not tell you that I am sorry that you have spoken as you have," she said, spacing her words so evenly that it gave the impression at first that she was repeating memorized sentences. "But I am young and no one else has ever done so. Perhaps I should have interrupted you and told you that my duty is toward my father, and that I am not sure of myself now, and that I am not ready to give myself to any other life. If this is true, it can profit neither of us to talk of love." "Neither of us!" Again it seemed to me that she had disclosed herself. I stood before her and in a voice that shook with eagerness, I said, "You love me. At least you love me a little?" She drew back. "You do!" I cried under my breath. "I know it! You do!" She raised her hands as if to keep me from her, and still retreated toward the hearth. "You love me!" I said. The sound of my own voice was raising a madness within me. "Say it!" I cried. "Say it!" She turned quickly away from me. "You love me." "No," she said. "I do not--love--you!"