She listened without interrupting me or making any reply, with her face bent toward me as if she were breathing the perfume of a flower.

When I begged her to answer me, when I implored her for one single word from her heart, she withdrew one of her hands, imprisoned within mine, and placed it upon my forehead, pushing back my head with a gesture familiar to women.

She gazed at me thus for a long time; her eyes were so languishing under their long lashes, and their languor was so penetrating, that I closed mine, not being able to endure the fascination of this glance any longer.
"A shiver which ran over her and which went through me also, like an electric shock, aroused me.

When I opened my eyes I saw her face bathed in tears.

She drew back and repelled me.