— ”

“No, I did not say so!� I — I love your vows.”

“How can you love my vows and not me?” I demanded angrily.

“I don’t know I can do it, but I do� . But I will love them no longer if you make the selfsame vows to her.”

“Now,” said I, perplexed and exasperated, “what does it profit a man when a maid confesses that she loves to hear his vows, but loves not him who makes them?”

“For me to love even your vows,” said she, looking at me sideways, “is something gained for you — or so it seems to me. And were I minded to play the coquette — as some do — — ”