“I believe you would have killed him,” I said.

“I know I should.  It’s a mistake not to be jealous.  I admit that I’m jealous.  But such jealousy is a compliment to a woman, my dearest, not an insult.”

“How you feel things!” I exclaimed.  “Even a play on the stage—­”

“If the woman I love is the heroine.”

“Will you ever be blase, like the rest of the men I know?” I laughed, though I could have sobbed.

“Never, I think.  It isn’t in me.  Do you despise me for my enthusiasm?”

“I only love you the more,” I said, wondering every instant, in a kind of horrid undertone, how I was to get him away.

“I admit I wasn’t made for diplomacy,” he went on.  “I wish, I had money enough to get out of it and take you off the stage, away into some beautiful, peaceful world, where we need think of nothing but our love for each other, and the good we might do others because of our love, and to keep our world beautiful.  Would you go with me?”

“Ah, if I could!” I sighed.  “If I could go with you to-morrow, away into that beautiful, peaceful world.  But-who knows?  Meanwhile—­”

“Meanwhile, you don’t mean to send me away from you?” he pleaded, in a coaxing way he has, which is part of his charm, and makes him seem like a boy.  “You don’t know what it is, after that scene of your death on the stage, where I couldn’t get to you—­where another man was your lover—­to touch you again, alive and warm, your own adorable, vivid self.  You will let me go home with you, in your carriage, anyhow as far as the house, and kiss you good-night there, even if you’re so tired you must drive me out then?”

I would have given all my success of that night, and more, to say “yes.”  But instead I had to stumble into excuses.  I had to argue that we mustn’t be seen leaving the theatre together—­yet, until everyone knew that we were engaged.  As for letting him come to me at home, if he dreamt how my head ached, he wouldn’t ask it.  I almost broke down as I said this; and poor Raoul was so sorry for me that he immediately offered to leave me at once.

“It’s a great sacrifice, though, to give up what I’ve been looking forward to for days,” he said, “and to let you go from me to-night of all nights.”

“Why to-night of all nights?”, I asked quickly, my coward conscience frightening me again.

“Only because I love you more than ever, and—­it’s a stupid feeling, of course, I suppose all the fault of that last scene in the play—­yet I feel as if—­But no, I don’t want to say it.”

“You must say it,” I cried.

“Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then.  I feel as if I were in danger of losing you.  It’s just a feeling—­a weight on my heart.  Nothing more.  Rather womanish, isn’t it?”

“Not womanish, but foolish,” I said.  “Shake off the feeling, as one wakes up from a nightmare.  Think of to-morrow.  Meeting then will be all the sweeter.”  As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying different words mockingly.  “If there be any meeting—­to-morrow, or ever.”