But in spite of it all I can be very consistent and true to myself in a question of real importance." Wilhelm drew away from the hand that caressed his lips and cheek, and said, averting his eyes: "You are a beautiful woman, and have a most exceptional mind, and it must be happiness indeed to be loved by you, but in order that that happiness might be full, one would have to love you in return, and there are men--I do not know whether to call them too proud or too fastidious--who can only love with their whole heart or not at all, and who cannot endure that the woman they love should treasure another image or other memories in her life." "Stop, my friend, stop!" cried the countess.

"You do not realize what you are saying.

That comes of your pride and vanity.

You always want to be the first--to write your names at the head of a blank sheet.

Why?
Is the conquest of a silly, ignorant girl more flattering than that of a woman of sense, who can compare and judge?
Is not your triumph a thousand times greater when a disappointed, deeply-skeptical woman lays her heart at your feet, and says--'You I will trust, you will bring me healing and happiness'-- than when a young girl gives you her love because you happen to be the first man who asks for it?
Other images!--other memories! Do you know so little of a woman's heart?
Do you imagine that the past exists for us when real true love comes upon us?
We see nothing in the whole world but the one man, we cannot believe that our heart has not always beat for him, and we are firmly persuaded that we have always known and always loved him and him alone." The eyes that gazed at him glowed with maenad-like desire, and bending suddenly she covered his hand with lingering, burning kisses.
Wilhelm passed his hand soothingly over the masses of her silky hair, and it flashed across him how much he had once wished to be able to do so, and now his wish was fulfilled.