he blossoms from
the wall and was pulling to pieces its purple petals.

"Do you know," she said, "that no young man has ever dared to talk to me
as you have done?"

"That is because no one yet has cared so much as I do," he assured her.
"I can quite understand their being frightened. I am terribly afraid of
you myself. I am afraid of the things I say to you, but I have to say
them because they are in my heart, and if I am only to have a quarter of
an hour with you now, you see I must make the best use of my time. I
must tell you that there isn't any other girl in the world I could ever
look at again, and if you won't promise to marry me some day, I shall be
the most wretched person on earth."

"I can never, never marry you," she told him emphatically. "There is
nothing which is so impossible as that."

"Well, that's a pretty bad start," he admitted.

"It is the end," she said firmly.

He shook his head. There was a terrible obstinacy in his face. She
frowned at him.

"You do not mean that you will persist after what I have told you?"

He looked at her, almost surprised.

"There isn't anything else for me to do, that I know of," he declared,
"so long as you don't care for any one else. Tell me again, you are sure
that there is no one?"

"Certainly not," she replied stiffly. "The subject has not yet been made
acceptable to me. You must forgive my adding that in my country it is
not usual for a girl to discuss these matters with a man before her
betrothal."

"Say, I don't understand that," he murmured, looking at her
thoughtfully. "She can't get engaged before she is asked."

"The preliminaries," she explained, "are always arranged by one's
parents."

He smiled pityingly.

"That sort of thing's no use," he asserted confidently. "You must be
getting past that, in whatever corner of Europe you live. What you mean
to say, then, is that your father has some one up his sleeve whom he'll
trot out for you before long?"

"Without doubt, some arrangement will be proposed," she agreed.

"And you'll have to be amiable to some one you've never seen in your
life before, I suppose?" he persisted.

"Not necessarily. It sometimes happens, in my position," she went on,
raising her head, "that certain sacrifices are necessary."

"In your position," he repeated quickly. "What does that mean? You
aren't a queen, are you, or anything of that sort?"

She laughed.

"No," she confessed, "I am not a queen, and yet--"