“Dorian, Dorian,” she cried, “before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I thought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.  I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came,—­oh, my beautiful love!—­and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what reality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness, of the empty pageant in which I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, not what I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection.  You have made me understand what love really is.  My love! my love!  I am sick [40] of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever be.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.  The knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.  What should they know of love?  Take me away, Dorian—­ take me away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it all means?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love.  You have made me see that.”

He flung himself down on the sofa, and turned away his face.  “You have killed my love,” he muttered.

She looked at him in wonder, and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came across to him, and stroked his hair with her little fingers.  She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him.

Then he leaped up, and went to the door.  “Yes,” he cried, “you have killed my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don’t even stir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and stupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!  You are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never think of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don’t know what you were to me, once.  Why, once . . . .  Oh, I can’t bear to think of it!  I wish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of my life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!  What are you without your art?  Nothing.  I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you would have belonged to me.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with a pretty face.”