“I ask without much hope.  You are so lovely, while I—­well I’m not a man women care for.  I’ve tried to please you.  Tried to please you so hard, that I may have deceived you.  I probably am what women say of me.  But if I’ve been otherwise with you it is because you are different from any other woman in the world.”  Here the sudden flow of words ended, and Peter paced up and down, trying to find what to say.  If any one had seen Peter as he paced, without his present environment, he would have thought him a man meditating suicide.  Suddenly his voice and face became less wild, and he said tenderly:  “There is no use in my telling you how I love you.  You know it now, or will never learn it from anything I can say.”  Peter strode back to the fire.  “It is my love which asks for a kiss.  And I want it for the love you will give with it, if you can give it.”

Leonore had apparently kept her eyes on the blazing logs during the whole of this monologue.  But she must have seen something of Peter’s uneasy wanderings about the room, for she had said to herself:  “Poor dear!  He must be fearfully in earnest, I never knew him so restless.  He prowls just like a wild animal.”

A moment’s silence came after Peter’s return to the fire.  Then he said:  “Will you give it to me, Miss D’Alloi?” But his voice in truth, made the words, “Give me what I ask, my darling.”

“Yes,” said Leonore softly.  “On your birthday.”  Then Leonore shrank back a little, as if afraid that her gift would be sought sooner.  No young girl, however much she loves a man, is quite ready for that first kiss.  A man’s lips upon her own are too contrary to her instinct and previous training to make them an unalloyed pleasure.  The girl who is over-ready for her lover’s first kiss, has tasted the forbidden fruit already, or has waited over-long for it.

Peter saw the little shrinking and understood it.  What was more, he heeded it as many men would not have done.  Perhaps there was something selfish in his self-denial, for the purity and girlishness which it indicated were very dear to him, and he hated to lessen them by anything he did.  He stood quietly by her, and merely said, “I needn’t tell you how happy I am!”

Leonore looked up into Peter’s face.  If Leonore had seen there any lack of desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, she would never have forgiven him.  But since his face showed beyond doubt that he was longing to do it, Leonore loved him all the better for his repression of self, out of regard for her.  She slipped her little hand into Peter’s confidingly, and said, “So am I.”  It means a good deal when a girl does not wish to run away from her lover the moment after she has confessed her love.

So they stood for some time, Leonore looking down into the fire, and Peter looking down at Leonore.

Finally Peter said, “Will you do me a great favor?”

“No,” said Leonore, “I’ve done enough for one night.  But you can tell me what it is.”