"O, Miss Bathsheba! That is to hard!"
"No, it isn't. Why is it?"
"You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long. I am soon going back again to the miserable monotony of drill -- and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic."
"When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest.
"In a month."
"But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?"
"Can you ask Miss Everdene -- knowing as you do -- what my offence is based on?"
"I you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it." she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. "But you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so -- I think you only say so."
"that's unjust -- but I won't repeat the remark. I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I do Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think a man foolish to want a mere word -- just a good morning. Perhaps he is -- I don't know. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman yourself."
"Well."
"Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like -- and Heaven forbid that you ever should!"
"Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing."
"Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture."
"Ah, sergeant, it won't do -- you are pretending!" she said, shaking her head." Your words are too dashing to be true."
"I am not, upon the honour of a soldier"
"But why is it so? -- Of course I ask for mere pastime."
Because you are so distracting -- and I am so distracted. "
"You look like it."
"I am indeed."
"Why, you only saw me the other night!"
"That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once -- as I do now."
Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes.
"You cannot and you don"t." she said demurely.
"There is-no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Hear me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is -- I am going -- I have wasted too much time here already!"