“How is it that no one until now has ever expressed such sentiments to me?”

The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand. He from the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when he thought of the happiness that would have been theirs, if thanks to fortune, meeting her earlier, they had been indissolubly bound to one another.

“I have sometimes thought of it,” she went on.

“What a dream!” murmured Léon. And fingering gently the blue binding of her long white sash, he added, “And who prevents us from beginning now?”

“No, my friend,” she replied; “I am too old; you are too young. Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them.”

“Not as you!” he cried.

“What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it.”