"I didn't
think you would speak to me so. Of all men!"
"You mustn't think," said Peter, "that I meant to pain you."
"You have," said Leonore, almost ready to cry.
"Because," said Peter, "that isn't what I meant." Peter obviously
struggled to find words to say what he did mean as he had never
struggled over the knottiest of legal points, or the hardest of
wrestling matches. "If I thought you were a girl who would kiss a man
for the asking, I should not care for a kiss from you." Peter strayed
away from the fire uneasily. "But I know you are not." Peter gazed
wildly round, as if the furnishings, of the hall might suggest the words
for which he was blindly groping. But they didn't, and after one or two
half-begun sentences, he continued: "I haven't watched you, and dreamed
about you, and loved you, for all this time, without learning what you
are." Peter roamed about the great hall restlessly. "I know that your
lips will never give what your heart doesn't." Then his face took a
despairing look, and he continued quite rapidly: "I ask without much
hope.
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