BUDDENBROOKS
“Well, he talked like that, Morten. He wouldn’t say ‘That looks very well’ or ‘It goes very well with the room.’ He was frightfully silly, I tell you. And very persistent; he simply wouldn’t be put off, although I never gave him anything but sarcasm. Once he made such a scene—he nearly wept—imagine a man weeping!”
“He must have worshipped you,” Morten said softly.
“Well, what affair was that of mine?” she cried out, astonished, turning around on her sand-heap.
“You are cruel, Fräulein Tony. Are you always cruel? Tell me: You didn’t like this Herr Grünlich. But is there any one to whom you have been more gracious? Sometimes I think: Has she a cold heart? Let me tell you something: a man is not idiotic simply because he weeps when you won’t look at him. I swear it. I am not sure, not at all, that I wouldn’t do the same thing. You see, you are such a dainty, spoilt thing. Do you always make fun of people that lie at your feet? Have you really a cold heart?”
After the first giggle, Tony’s lip began to quiver. She turned on him a pair of great distressed eyes, which slowly filled with tears as she said softly: “No, Morten, you should not think that of me—you must not think that of me.”
“I don’t; indeed I don’t,” he cried, with a laugh of mingled emotion and hardly suppressed exultation. He turned fully about, so that he lay supporting himself on his elbows, took her hands in both his, and looked straight into hers with his kind steel-blue eyes, which were excited and dreamy and exalted all at once.
“Then you—you won’t mock at me if I tell you—?”
“I know, Morten,” she answered gently, looking away from him at the fine white sand sifting through the fingers of her free hand.
“You know—and you—oh, Fräulein Tony!”
“Yes, Morten. I care a great deal for you. More than for any one else I know.”
He started up, making awkward gestures with his arms,
