"I have a little of a bad conscience," he said. "I ought n't to meet you this way till I have got your father's consent."
Gertrude looked at him for some time. "I don't understand you."
"You very often say that," he said. "Considering how little we understand each other, it is a wonder how well we get on!"
"We have done nothing but meet since you came here--but meet alone.
The first time I ever saw you we were alone," Gertrude went on.
"What is the difference now? Is it because it is at night?"
"The difference, Gertrude," said Felix, stopping in the path, "the difference is that I love you more--more than before!"
And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of the closed dark house. "I have been talking to Charlotte--been trying to bespeak her interest with your father.
She has a kind of sublime perversity; was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her own head?"
"You are too careful," said Gertrude; "you are too diplomatic."
"Well," cried the young man, "I did n't come here to make any one unhappy!"
Gertrude looked round her awhile in the odorous darkness.
"I will do anything you please," she said.
"For instance?" asked Felix, smiling.
"I will go away. I will do anything you please."
Felix looked at her in solemn admiration. "Yes, we will go away," he said.
"But we will make peace first."
Gertrude looked about her again, and then she broke out, passionately, "Why do they try to make one feel guilty? Why do they make it so difficult?
Why can't they understand?"
"I will make them understand!" said Felix. He drew her hand into his arm, and they wandered about in the garden, talking, for an hour.