had the chance of learning them I would do it, to please you. It would
not make me love you any more. I believe that we, who think of few
people because we know few, think of them more and more lovingly. But
if I took trouble to please you, it would show you how much I love you.
Perhaps--perhaps that is what you really want, that I should say more,
act more, make a greater show. Is that it, after all?'

Her mood had changed while she was speaking, perhaps by the enumeration
of her points of inferiority. She turned her bright eyes towards Greif
with a look of curiosity, as though wondering whether she had hit the
mark, as indeed she had, by a pure accident.

'It cannot be that--I cannot be such a fool!' Greif exclaimed with all
the resentment of a man who has been found out in his selfishness.

'I should not think any the worse of you,' said Hilda. 'It is I who
have been foolish not to guess it before. How should you understand
that I love you, merely because I say good morning and kiss you, and
good evening and kiss you, and talk about the weather and your mother's
ribbands! There must be something more. And yet I feel that if you
married some one else, I should be very unhappy and should perhaps die.
Why not? There would not be anything to live for. Why can I not find
some way of letting you know how I love you? There must be ways of
showing it--but I have thought of everything I can do for you, and it
is so little, for you have everything. Only--Greif, you must not doubt
that I love you because I have no way of showing it--or if you do--'

'Forgive me, Hilda--I never doubted--'

'Oh, but you did, you did,' answered Hilda with great emphasis, and in