One evening she stood in the darkness with her cheek pressed against
the wall at the corner of her balcony nearest to him; he looked over
and downward at her.
"It cannot be. It cannot be," she said, with a frightened quaver in her
voice, but a quaver which the Prince recognised, with his large
experience, as the tone of yielding.
"It must be," he whispered down to her. "It was ordained from the
first. It has to be."
The girl was weeping silently.
"It is impossible," she said at last. "My servant sleeps outside my
door. Even if she did not know, your servant would, and there would be
gossip--and scandal. It is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," cried the Prince eagerly, "where true love
exists. I shall lock my door, and Pietro shall know nothing about it.
He never comes unless I call him. I will get a rope and throw it to
your balcony. Lock you your door as I do mine. In the darkness nothing
is seen."
"No, no," she murmured. "That would not do. You could not climb back
again, and all would be lost."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried the young man eagerly. "It is nothing to climb
back." He was about to add that he had done it frequently before, but
he checked himself in time.
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