"More at liberty?" Gertrude repeated. "Please unfasten the boat."
Felix untwisted the rope and stood holding it.
"I should be able to say things to you that I can't give myself the pleasure of saying now," he went on.
"I could tell you how much I admire you, without seeming to pretend to that which I have no right to pretend to.
I should make violent love to you," he added, laughing, "if I thought you were so placed as not to be offended by it."
"You mean if I were engaged to another man? That is strange reasoning!"
Gertrude exclaimed.
"In that case you would not take me seriously."
"I take every one seriously," said Gertrude. And without his help she stepped lightly into the boat.
Felix took up the oars and sent it forward. "Ah, this is what you have been thinking about? It seemed to me you had something on your mind.
I wish very much," he added, "that you would tell me some of these so-called reasons--these obligations."
"They are not real reasons--good reasons," said Gertrude, looking at the pink and yellow gleams in the water.
"I can understand that! Because a handsome girl has had a spark of coquetry, that is no reason."
"If you mean me, it 's not that. I have not done that."
"It is something that troubles you, at any rate," said Felix.