“No, you have not understood.  Is it my fault?  Israel Kafka, that hand is not yours to hold.”

“Not mine?  Unorna!” Yet he could not quite believe what she said.

“I am in earnest,” she answered, not without a lingering tenderness in the intonation.  “Do you think I am jesting with you, or with myself?”

Neither of the two stirred during the silence which followed.  Unorna sat quite still, staring fixedly into the green shadows of the foliage, as though not daring to meet the gaze she felt upon her.  Israel Kafka still knelt beside her, motionless and hardly breathing, like a dangerous wild animal startled by an unexpected enemy, and momentarily paralysed in the very act of springing, whether backward in flight, or forward in the teeth of the foe, it is not possible to guess.

“I have been mistaken,” Unorna continued at last.  “Forgive—­forget—­”

Israel Kafka rose to his feet and drew back a step from her side.  All his movements were smooth and graceful.  The perfect man is most beautiful in motion, the perfect woman in repose.

“How easy it is for you!” exclaimed the Moravian.  “How easy!  How simple!  You call me, and I come.  You let your eyes rest on me, and I kneel before you.  You sigh, and I speak words of love.  You lift your hand and I crouch at your feet.  You frown—­and I humbly leave you.  How easy!”

“You are wrong, and you speak foolishly.  You are angry, and you do not weigh your words.”

“Angry!  What have I to do with so common a madness as anger?  I am more than angry.  Do you think that because I have submitted to the veering gusts of your good and evil humours these many months, I have lost all consciousness of myself?  Do you think that you can blow upon me as upon a feather, from east and west, from north and south, hotly or coldly, as your unstable nature moves you?  Have you promised me nothing?  Have you given me no hope?  Have you said and done nothing whereby you are bound?  Or can no pledge bind you, no promise find a foothold in your slippery memory, no word of yours have meaning for those who hear it?”

“I never gave you either pledge or promise,” answered Unorna in a harder tone.  “The only hope I have ever extended to you was this, that I would one day answer you plainly.  I have done so.  You are not satisfied.  Is there anything more to be said?  I do not bid you leave my house for ever, any more than I mean to drive you from my friendship.”

“From your friendship!  Ah, I thank you, Unorna; I most humbly thank you!  For the mercy you extend in allowing me to linger near you, I am grateful!  Your friend, you say?  Ay, truly, your friend and servant, your servant and your slave, your slave and your dog.  Is the friend impatient and dissatisfied with his lot?  A soft word shall turn away his anger.  Is the servant over-presumptuous?  Your scorn will soon teach him his duty.  Is the slave disobedient?  Blows will cure him of his faults.  Does your dog fawn upon you too familiarly?  Thrust him from you with your foot and he will cringe and cower till you smile again.  Your friendship—­I have no words for thanks!”