“I take thee at thy word. 
  Call me but love, and I’ll be new-baptized;
  Henceforth I never will be Romeo.”

Poor Zelma did not have the presence of mind to greet this sudden apparition of a lover in the apt words of her part,—­

  “What man art thou, that, thus bescreened in night,
  So stumblest on my counsel?”

She had no words at all for the intruder, but, frightened and bewildered, sprang from her seat and turned her face toward home, with a startled bird’s first impulse to flight.  As she rose, her book slid from her lap and fell among the daisies at her feet.  The actor caught it up and presented it to her, with the grace of a courtly knight restoring the dropped glove of a princess, but, as he did so, exclaimed, in a half-playful tone, looking at the volume rather than the lady,—­

“I thank thee, O my master, for affording me so fair an excuse for mine audacity!”

Then, assuming a more earnest manner, he proceeded to make excuses and entreat pardon for the suddenness, informality, and presumption of his appearance before her:—­

“You know, Madam,” he said,—­“if, indeed, you are so unfortunate as to know anything about us,—­that we players are an impulsive, unconventional class of beings, lawless and irresponsible, the Gypsies of Art.”

Here Zelma flushed and drew herself up, while a suspicious glance shot from her eyes;—­but the stranger seemed not to understand or perceive it, for he went on quite innocently, and with increasing earnestness of tone and manner:—­

“I know I have been presuming, impertinent, audacious, in thus intruding myself upon you, and acknowledge that you would be but severely just in banishing me instantly from your bright presence, and in withdrawing from me forever the light of your adorable eyes.  Oh, those eyes!” he continued, clasping his hands in an ecstasy of lover-like enthusiasm, —­“those wild, sweet orbs!—­bewildering lights of love, dear as life, but cruel as death!—­can they not quicken, even as they slay?  Oh, gentle lady, be like her of Verona!—­be gracious, be kind, or, at least, be merciful, and do not banish me!—­

  ’For exile hath more terror in his look,
  Much more, than death; do not say banishment!’”

He paused, but did not remove his passionate looks from the young girl’s face,—­looks which, though cast down, for he was much the taller of the two, had the effect of most lowly and deprecating entreaty;—­and then there happened an event,—­a very slight, common, natural event,—­the result more of girlish embarrassment than of any conscious emotion or purpose, yet of incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps, decisive of the fate of two human hearts,—­Zelma smiled.  It was a quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to escape from the firm lips and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features with strange radiance, and then was gone,—­and, in its place, the old shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever.