He paused abruptly, seeing her glance up at him with a look of wonder on her face. "You love me?" she exclaimed. "But that is past believing! 'Tis but a few days since you first saw me. You cannot know what I am really like! How then can you _love_ me? I love my father because he has cared for me and loved me all my life; I love Zonella--and--and--other friends, because I have known them for so long, and they have been kind and good to me. How can you yet tell that you will love me? Perchance when you know me better you may even come to hate me." "Oh! Ulama! What is that you say?" he said impetuously. "You cannot mean it! You are playing with me! But it is cruel play! The love I mean is not such as the slow growth of a child's affection for a parent or a girl-friend. It is a swift, resistless passion, that centres on one being above all others in the world, and says, 'This one only do I love; this one possesses all my heart and soul! From this one I can never swerve--my love will end only when my heart no longer beats; I cannot live without it.' Such a love bursts forth spontaneously from the heart, as does a tiny spring from the earth's bosom and that, when once it has found vent, for ever bubbles up fresh and clear and pure, and, commencing in a little rill, increases to a torrent whose force no power can stem. _That_ is the love I mean; and 'tis such a love I bear for you, Ulama. Can you not understand something of all this?" "I know not," replied the maiden in a low voice, and glancing timidly at him. "You frighten me a little--or you would, but that I like you too well to feel afraid of you--but--I have no knowledge of such love as you describe." "But, you have _heard_ of a love that far exceeds mere friendship--far stronger than affection?" "Y-es. I have _heard_ of it; and--ridiculed it as fiction. Yet--if you affirm its truth, and in your own person have experienced it--I must fain believe you, for I know you would not say what is not true. But"--here she sagely shook her head--"though my ears receive your words, the time has not yet come when they have reached my heart." Leonard seized her hand. "But, meanwhile, I have not offended you, Ulama?" he asked entreatingly. "You will let me love you? Indeed, I am powerless to help it. And you will try to--to--like me--ah, you have said you _do_ like me already. Will you not try to love me a little?" "Nay," she frankly answered, "you would not surely have me _try_? What sort of love would that be that we had to _try_ to bring into being--to force upon an unresponsive heart? You have said that it should burst forth spontaneously. I scarcely understand when you speak thus." Leonard sighed. "You are right, Ulama, as you ever are; and I am wrong; but my love makes me impatient. I will not expect too much of you. I will wait with such content as is in me to command until your gentle heart shall beat in unison with mine; and something in me tells me that one day it will."