"I was called out that summer for the man[oe]uvres," he continued, "and heard nothing else talked about at the Casino but you. Even the ladies of the regiment were full of you. Your photographs were passed round, for some of the men snapped you on the sly.... I recognised you at once from the photographs. Yes, I can truthfully assert that I loved you then. What's more, after Prell's letter told me that you were to come into my life, what plans for winning you didn't I work out in that year and a half! Then at last you turned up at my warehouse, and you exceeded my wildest expectations. But I lost hope when I saw what a great lady you had become, and how much you still thought of Walter. Though I know I am not a bad fellow, I haven't much self-confidence, and to have you for a mistress seemed too great luck to be dreamed of." Now that he came out with the word "mistress" for the first time, an intense bitterness welled up within her. "To have me for a wife," she thought, "that is something not to be dreamed of, evidently." And she laughed out loud. He took her laugh as a sign that she was too modest to accept his compliment, and he worked himself up into still greater enthusiasm. Did she think that any of the women in whose society they had been that evening were worthy to lick her shoes? Had she no conception of how immeasurably she outshone everything that bore the name of woman? Then from her tearful eyes came the question that pride and shame prevented her expressing in words. This time he must have understood, for he suddenly broke off in what he was saying, clasped his hands to his head, and ran up and down the room half sobbing. She heard him ejaculate: "Can't ... I can't ... it wouldn't do." "Well, if he can't, he can't," she thought, and, with her face resting on her palms, she stared at him wistfully. He came now and stood in front of her, struggled to speak, but choked over his words, and then he resumed his racing up and down the room. She caught phrases like, "My mother ... would never consent ... ruination to the business," and then again the refrain, "I can't; no, I can't; it wouldn't do ..." "He is quite right," she thought, "anyone like me ... how could he?" And with a feeling of final renunciation, she collapsed in a heap. Shocked, he hurried to her side, leaned over her, and tried to stroke her hands; but she thrust him from her. At a loss to find words to vindicate his miserable subterfuge, he took up the thread at the point where her laugh had interrupted it.