'Yes, I suppose so. But it always comes to that in the end, whenever we
talk about it, and I am never any nearer to knowing what love is, after
all!'

The young girl rested her chin upon her hand and looked wistfully
through the trees, as though she wished and half expected that some
wise fairy would come flitting through the shadow and the patches of
sunshine to tell her the meaning of her love, of her life, of all she
felt, of all she did not feel. She read in books that maidens blushed
when the man they loved spoke to them, that their hearts beat fast and
that their hands grew cold--simple expressions out of simple and almost
childish tales. But none of these things happened to her. Why should
they? Had she not expected to meet Greif that day? Why should she feel
surprise, or fear, or whatever it was, that made the hearts of maidens
in fiction behave so oddly? He was very handsome, as he sat there
glancing sideways at her, and she could see him distinctly, though she
seemed to be looking at the trees. But that was no reason why she
should turn red and pale, and tremble as though she had done something
very wrong. It was all quite right, and quite sanctioned. She had
nothing to say to Greif, nothing to think about him, that her mother
might not have heard or known.

'I am no nearer to knowing,' she repeated after a long interval of
silence.

'And I am no nearer to the wish to know,' answered Greif, clasping his
brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his
straw hat. 'You are a strange girl, Hilda,' he added presently, and
something in his face showed that her singularity pleased him and