And in the
face of my first resolve, hurt as I was, instead of being proud and cold,
disturbed and offended, I began right off to talk of trifles. The telling
word would not come; I conducted myself in an exceedingly aimless fashion.
Why couldn't she just as well tell me plainly and straightly to go my way?
I queried. Yes, indeed, why not? There was no need of feeling embarrassed
about it. Instead of reminding me that the girl would soon come home, she
could have simply said as follows: "Now you must run, for I must go and
fetch my mother, and I won't have your escort through the street." So it
was not that she had been thinking about? Ah, yes; it was that all the
same she had thought about; I understood that at once. It did not require
much to put me on the right track; only, just the way she had taken up her
jacket, and left it down again, had convinced me immediately. As I said
before, I had presentiments; and it was not altogether insanity that was
at the root of it....
"But, great heavens! do forgive me for that word! It slipped out of my
mouth," she cried; but yet she stood quite quietly, and did not come over
to me.
I was inflexible, and went on. I stood there and prattled, with the
painful consciousness that I bored her, that not one of my words went
home, and all the same I did not cease.
At bottom one might be a fairly sensitive nature, even if one were not
insane, I ventured to say.
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