'Just so long--'

'And that means for ever.'

'How do you know, unless you have some knowledge by which you can tell whether your love is true or not?'

'Why not yours, sweetheart?'

'Oh! I know myself well enough. I shall never change. But you--you might--'

'Do you not believe me?'

'Yes, I suppose so. But it always comes to that in the end, whenever we talk about it, and I am never any nearer to knowing what love is, after all!'

The young girl rested her chin upon her hand and looked wistfully through the trees, as though she wished and half expected that some wise fairy would come flitting through the shadow and the patches of sunshine to tell her the meaning of her love, of her life, of all she felt, of all she did not feel. She read in books that maidens blushed when the man they loved spoke to them, that their hearts beat fast and that their hands grew cold--simple expressions out of simple and almost childish tales. But none of these things happened to her. Why should they? Had she not expected to meet Greif that day? Why should she feel surprise, or fear, or whatever it was, that made the hearts of maidens in fiction behave so oddly? He was very handsome, as he sat there glancing sideways at her, and she could see him distinctly, though she seemed to be looking at the trees. But that was no reason why she should turn red and pale, and tremble as though she had done something very wrong. It was all quite right, and quite sanctioned. She had nothing to say to Greif, nothing to think about him, that her mother might not have heard or known.

'I am no nearer to knowing,' she repeated after a long interval of silence.

'And I am no nearer to the wish to know,' answered Greif, clasping his brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his straw hat. 'You are a strange girl, Hilda,' he added presently, and something in his face showed that her singularity pleased him and satisfied his pride.

'Am I? Then why do you like me? Or do you like me because I am strange?'

'I wish I were a poet,' observed Greif instead of answering her. 'I would write such things about you as have never been written about any woman. However, I suppose you would never read my verses.'

'Oh yes!' laughed Hilda. 'Especially if mamma told me that they belonged to the "best German epoch." But I should not like them--'

'You do not like poetry in general, I believe.'

'It always seems to me a very unnatural way of expressing oneself,'

answered Hilda thoughtfully. 'Why should a man go out of his way to put what he wants to say into a certain shape? What necessity is there for putting in a word more than is needed, or for pinching oneself so as to cut one out that would be useful for the sense, just because by doing that you can make everything fit a certain mould and sound mechanical--ta ra tatatata ta tum tum! "Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten" and all the rest of it. There is something wrong. That poem is very sad and romantic in idea, and yet you always sing it when you are particularly happy.'

'Most people do,' said Greif, smiling at the truth of the observation.

'Then what is there in poetry? Does "I love you" sound sweeter if it is followed by a mechanical "ta ra ta ra ta tum" of words quite unnecessary to the thought, and which you only hear because they jingle after you, as your spurs do, when you have been riding and are on foot, at every step you take?'

'Schlagend!' laughed Greif. 'An annihilating argument! I will never think of writing verses any more, I promise you.'

'No. Don't,' answered Hilda emphatically. 'Unless you feel that you cannot love me in plain language--in prose,' she added, with a glance of her sparkling eyes.

'Verse would be better than nothing, then?'

'Than nothing--anything would be better than that.'

Greif fell to wondering whether her serious tone meant all that he understood by it, and he asked himself whether her calm, pa.s.sionless affection were really what he in his heart called love. She felt no emotion, like his own. She could p.r.o.nounce the words 'I love' again and again without a tremor of the voice or a change in the even shading of her radiant colour. It was possible that she only thought of him as a brother, as a part of the world she lived in, as something dearer than her mother because nearer to her own age. It was possible that if she had been in the world she might have seen some man whose mere presence could make her feel all she had never felt. It was conceivable that she should have fallen into this sisterly sort of affection in the absence of any person who might have awakened her real sensibilities. Greif's masculine nature was not satisfied, for it craved a more active response, as a lad watches for the widening ripples when he has dropped a pebble into a placid pool. An irresistible desire to know the truth overcame Greif.

'Are you quite sure of yourself, sweetheart?' he asked softly.

'Of what?'

'That you really love me. Do you know--'

Before he could finish the question Hilda was looking into his face, with an expression he had never seen before. He stopped short, surprised at the effect of his own words. Hilda was very angry, perhaps for the first time in her whole life. The brightness of her eyes almost startled him, and there was a slight contraction of the brows that gave her features a look of amazing power. Greif even fancied that, for once, her cheek was a shade paler than usual.

'You do not know what you say,' she answered very slowly.

'Darling--you have misunderstood me!' exclaimed Greif in distress. 'I did not mean to say--'

'You asked me if I were sure that I really loved you,' said Hilda very gravely. 'You must be mad, but those were your words.'

'Hear me, sweetheart! I only asked because--you see, you are so different from other women! How can I explain!'

'So you have had experience of others!' She spoke coldly and her voice had an incisive ring in it that wounded him as a knife. He was too inexperienced to know what to do, and he instinctively a.s.sumed that look of injured superiority which it is the peculiar privilege of women to wear in such cases, and which, in a man, exasperates them beyond measure.

'My dear,' said Greif, 'you have quite misunderstood me. I will explain the situation.'

'It is necessary,' answered Hilda, looking at the trees.

'In the first place, you must remember what we were saying, or rather what you were saying a little while ago. You wanted an explanation of the nature of love. Now that made me think that you had never felt what I feel--'

'I have not had your experience,' observed Hilda.

'But I have not had any experience either!' exclaimed Greif, suddenly breaking down in his dissertation.

'Then how do you know that I am so different from other women?' was the inexorable retort.

'I have seen other women, and talked with them--'

'About love?'

'No--about the weather,' answered Greif, annoyed at her persistence.

'And were their views about the weather so very different from mine?'

inquired the young girl, pushing him to the end of the situation.

'Perhaps.'

'You do not seem sure. I wish you would explain yourself, as you promised to do!'

'Then you must not interrupt me at every word.'

'Was I interrupting? I thought my questions might help you. Go on.'

'I only mean to say that I never heard of a woman who wanted an explanation of her feelings when she was in love. And then I wondered whether your love was like mine, and as I am very sure, I supposed that if you felt differently you could not be so sure as I. That is all. Why are you so angry?'

'You know very well why I am angry. That is only an excuse.'

'If you are going to argue in that way--' Greif shrugged his shoulders and said nothing more. Hilda seemed to be collecting her thoughts.

'You evidently doubt me,' she said at last, speaking quietly. 'It is the first time. You have tried to defend your question, and you have not succeeded. All that you can tell me is that I am different from other women with whom you have talked. I know that as well as you do, though I have never seen them. It is quite possible that the difference may come from my education, or want of education. In that case, if you are going to be ashamed of me, when I am your wife, because I know less than the girls you have seen in towns and such places--why then, go away and marry one of them. She will feel as you expect her to feel, and you will be satisfied.'