you?"

"But that was broken off--"

The sentence stuck in his throat; and he wondered that he could have
begun it. He wondered, too, how he could even have doubted the faith of
the woman before him; and most of all he wondered if he had ever really
loved her. He had an irritating consciousness that something was
expected of him which he was unwilling to give; some sign of
tenderness, some caress such as befitted the reconciliation of lovers
long separated by misunderstanding and blinding jealousy. He felt as if
he were falling below the demands of the occasion, most annoying of
sensations to the masculine mind. But an important interview can with
difficulty be changed from the key in which it is begun, and even had
his feelings prompted a display of tenderness, he felt that it would
seem abrupt and forced. He waited for Ninitta to speak.

"Yes," she said, after a moment, as he did not continue, "it was broken
off, but Signor Hoffmeir said that was because you did not understand,
and that everything would be as it had been when you got his letter."

A sad hopelessness began to appear in her eyes; she had of old been too
accustomed to submit to her lover's will to assume the initiative now,
despite the development and strength which time had given to her
character. The sculptor did not dream how her heart throbbed beneath
her quiet demeanor, but he was too sensitive not to be touched by the
unconscious appeal of her voice and look.

Seven years before, an enthusiastic student in Rome, he had loved or
believed he loved, the peasant girl Ninitta, whom he had found in an