CLARA.

Things used to be different!

LEONARD.

Correct!  If you had always looked as you do now, we should never have become good friends!

CLARA.

What of it?

LEONARD.

So you feel yourself as free of me as that, do you?  Perhaps it serves me right!  Then [significantly] your recent toothache was a mere pretext!

CLARA.

Oh, Leonard, it was not right of you!

LEONARD.

Not right for me to seek to bind to me the greatest treasure that I have—­for that is what you are to me—­with the firmest of all bonds?  And especially at a time when I stood in danger of losing it?  Do you think I did not see the furtive glances you exchanged with the Secretary?  That was a triumphant day of joy for me!  I take you to the dance and—­ CLARA.

You never stop saying things that hurt me!  I looked at the Secretary, why should I deny it?  But only on account of the moustache he had grown at the University, and which—­

[She checks herself.]

LEONARD.

Becomes him so well—­isn’t that it?  Isn’t that what you started to say?  Oh, you women!  Anything that looks like a soldier, even a caricature of one, you like.  To me the fop’s ridiculous little oval face, with that tuft of hair in the middle of it, looked like a little white rabbit hiding behind a bush.  I am bitter toward him—­I won’t try to conceal it.  He held me back from you long enough!

CLARA.

I didn’t praise him, did I?  You don’t need to run him down!

LEONARD.

You still seem to take a lot of interest in him.

CLARA.

We used to play together as children, and afterward—­you know very well!

LEONARD.

Oh yes, I know!  And that’s just why!

CLARA.

Then I think it was only natural, seeing him again for the first time in a long while that way, for me to look at him and be astonished to see how big and—­[She checks herself.]

LEONARD.

Why did you blush then, when he looked back at you?

CLARA.

I thought he was looking at the little mole on my left cheek to see if it, too, had grown bigger!  You know I always imagine people are looking at that when they stare at me so, and it always makes me blush.  I have a feeling as if it were growing larger, as long as they look at it!

LEONARD.

However that may be, it got on my nerves, and I thought to myself:  This very evening I will put her to the test!  If she wants to become my wife, she knows that she risks nothing.  If she says no, then—­

CLARA.

Oh, you said a bad, bad word, when I pushed you back and jumped up from the bench.  The moon, which up to that time had shone in through the foliage with such kindly consideration for me, at that moment sank shrewdly behind the wet clouds.  I wanted to hurry away, but felt something holding me.  At first I thought it was you, but it was the rose-bush, whose thorns held my dress like teeth.  You outraged my heart, so that I no longer trusted it myself.  You stood before me like one demanding the payment of a debt!  I—­Oh, God!