“It is quite true,” she remarked after a short pause, “I did take possession of you.  That was unwomanly, but I could not help it.  You are a cold-blooded German, and different from any man I ever knew before.  You did not know how to appreciate the good fortune that befell you when chance set you down at my side in that dreary little hole.  You abominable creature, for a whole fortnight you took not the slightest notice of me; you sat there beside me like a block, and never so much as looked at me.  For a long time I did not know what to make of you.  At first I tried to think you as ridiculous as the other idiots round the table, but I could not, try as I would.  Your ugly owlish face had made too great an impression on me.  And then I was annoyed by your reserve, and when I used to see you stalk in, looking so haughty, and you bowed so coldly to me and remained so distant, I thought to myself—­just wait, monsieur the iceberg, some day you will be at my feet begging for love, and then it will be my turn to be proud, and I shall be triumphant.”

“There you see the Sphinx and the mouse.”

“Oh, but it all happened quite differently.  I spoke first, I made you every sort of advance; and what did you do?  You held forth to me on the mortification of the flesh.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  And even when I saw that love was burning in your eyes, you remained stiff-necked and tried to run away from me.  If I was set upon happiness, I found I must take it by force.  I know you better now.  You were capable of never confessing your love to me, of never asking anything of me.  Am I right or not, tell me?”

“You are right,” he murmured.

“But that would have been a sin—­a deadly sin, a capital crime against the High Majesty of Nature.  What!  Fate takes the trouble to think out the most improbable combinations, sets the most complicated machinery in motion to bring us together; it drags you out of the depths of Germany, and me from Castile, and brings us to a little hotel in a little village in Picardy, the very name of which was unknown to either of us a short time before; we instantly feel that we are made for one another and are certain to be happy together, and yet all these exertions on the part of Fate are to have been in vain?  Never!  Our paths crossed each other at a single point, for a moment they were united, it depended on us whether they should always remain so.  And I was to let you go, never to meet again on this side of eternity?  It was not possible, and as you were so clumsy, or so timid, or so self-torturing—­”

She finished the sentence with a long kiss, at which he closed his eyes once more, and shut out everything but its flame.