alone. . . I don't even know how to talk to them. Here, I don't know now whether I have not said something silly to you! Tell me frankly; I assure you beforehand that I am not quick to take offence?. . ."
"No, nothing, nothing, quite the contrary. And if you insist on my speaking frankly, I will tell you that women like such timidity; and if you want to know more, I like it too, and I won't drive you away till I get home."
"You will make me," I said, breathless with delight, "lose my timidity, and then farewell to all my chances. . . ."
"Chances! What chances—of what? That's not so nice."
"I beg your pardon, I am sorry, it was a slip of the tongue; but how can you expect one at such a moment to have no desire. . . ."
"To be liked, eh?"
"Well, yes; but do, for goodness' sake, be kind. Think what I am! Here, I am twenty-six and I have never seen any one. How can I speak well, tactfully, and to the point? It will seem better to you when I have told you everything openly. . . . I don't know how to be silent when my heart is speaking, Well, never mind. . . . Believe me, not one, woman, never, never! No acquaintance of any sort! And I do nothing but dream every day that at last I shall meet someone. Oh, if only you knew how often I have been in love in that way. . ."
"How? With whom? . . ."
"Why, with no one, with an ideal, with the one I dream of in my sleep. I make up regular romances in my dreams. Ah you don't know me! It's true, of course, I have met two or three women, but what sort of women were they? They were all landladies, that. . . But I shall make you laugh if I tell you that I have several times thought of speaking, just simply speaking, to some aristocratic lady in the street, when she is alone, I need hardly say; speaking to her, of course, timidly, respectfully, passionately; telling her that I am perishing in solitude, begging her not to send me away; saying that I have no chance of making the acquaintance of any woman; im-
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