He released her hand, which he had
held in his own since his entrance, and silently went to an arm-chair.
She followed, took a seat on a stool at his feet, and said caressingly:
"How long has Robert had secrets from Else? May I not know everything?
Has one of my sex again proved faithless? Ah, dearest Robert, so few of
us are worth having people trouble themselves about us."
"That isn't it at all," Robert answered curtly.
"What is it, then?"
Robert remained silent a short time, then, averting his eyes from her
questioning gaze, said:
"This is my birthday."
"You don't suppose that I could forget it? But certainly you do not wish
to be congratulated upon it, to have it mentioned?"
Robert laid his hand upon her lips, murmuring:
"Yet I cannot forget your thinking of it, as I see."
A pause ensued, and he had the unpleasant feeling that his ostrich method
of shunning the sight of a disagreeable fact, must appear very ridiculous.
"Well, and why does your birthday make you melancholy?" asked Else,
kissing his hand as she removed it from her mouth.
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