Will you kindly answer me a question ?" Isabel made no audible assent, but he apparently saw in her eyes something that gave him courage to go on.

"Do you prefer some one else ?" "That's a question I'd rather not answer." "Ah, you do then!" her suitor murmured with bitterness.
The bitterness touched her, and she cried out: "You're mistaken! I don't." He sat down on a bench, unceremoniously, doggedly, like a man in trouble; leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor.

"I can't even be glad of that," he said at last, throwing himself back against the wall; "for that would be an excuse." She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"An excuse?
Must I excuse myself ?" He paid, however, no answer to the question.

Another idea had come into his head.