She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she sat down
again.

"Well!" said Leon.

"Well!" she replied.

He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, when she
said to him--

"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 Leon. 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."