re I ventured or presumed to know it. I was thinking of you
when I seemed to myself to be thinking of other things. It is very
strange--there are things in it I don't understand. I travelled over
the world, I tried to interest, to divert myself; but at bottom it was
a perfect failure. To see you again--that was what I wanted. When I saw
you last month at Blanquais I knew it; then everything became clear. It
was the answer to the riddle. I wished to read it very clearly--I wished
to be sure; therefore I did n't follow you immediately. I questioned my
heart--I cross-questioned it. It has borne the examination, and now I am
sure. I am very sure. I love you as my life--I beg you to listen to me!"

She had listened--she had listened intently, looking straight out of the
window and without moving.

"You have seen very little of me," she said, presently, turning her
illuminated eye on him.

"I have seen enough," Bernard added, smiling. "You must remember that at
Baden I saw a good deal of you."

"Yes, but that did n't make you like me. I don't understand."

Bernard stood there a moment, frowning, with his eyes lowered.

"I can imagine that. But I think I can explain."

"Don't explain now," said Angela. "You have said enough; explain some
other time." And she went out on the balcony.

Bernard, of course, in a moment was beside her, and, disregarding her
injunction, he began to explain.

"I thought I disliked you--but I have come to the conclusion it was just
the contrary. In reality I was in love with you. I had been so from the
first time I saw you--when I made that sketch of you at Siena."

"That in itself needs an explanation. I was not at all nice then--I was
very rude, very perverse. I was horrid!"

"Ah, you admit it!" cried Bernard, with a sort of quick elation.

She had been pale, but she suddenly blushed.

"Your own conduct was singular, as I remember it. It was not exactly
agreeable."

"Perhaps not; but at least it was meant to be. I did n't know how to
please you then, and I am far from supposing that I have learned now.
But I entreat you to give me a chance."

She was silent a while; her eyes wandered over the great prospect of
Paris.

"Do you know how you can please me now?" she said, at last. "By leaving
me alone."

Bernard looked at her a moment, then came straight back into the
drawing-room and took his hat.

"You see I avail myself of the first chance. But I shall come back
to-morrow."