There was a pause.  The picturesque scene before me seemed to glow and gather intensity as I gazed.

“If you could see what is in my heart,”—­he continued—­“you would be satisfied that no greater love was ever given to woman than mine for you!  Yet I would not say I give it to you—­for I have striven against it.”  He paused—­and when he spoke again his words were so distinct that they seemed close to my ears.

“It has been wrung out of my very blood and soul—­I can no more resist it than I can resist the force of the air by which I live and breathe.  I ought not to love you,—­you are a joy forbidden to me—­ and yet I feel, rightly speaking, that you are already mine—­that you belong to me as the other half of myself, and that this has been so from the beginning when God first ordained the mating of souls.  I tell you I feel this, but cannot explain it,—­and I grasp at you as my one hope of joy!—­I cannot let you go!”

She was silent, save for a deep sigh that stirred her bosom under its folded lace and made her jewels sparkle like sunbeams on the sea.

“If I lose you now, having known and loved you,” he went on—­“I lose my art.  Not that this would matter—­”

Her voice trembled on the air.

“It would matter a great deal”—­she said, softly—­“to the world!”

“The world!” he echoed—­“What need I care for it?  Nothing seems of value to me where you are not—­I am nerveless, senseless, hopeless without you.  My inspiration—­such as it is—­comes from you—­”

She moved restlessly—­her face was turned slightly away so that I could not see it.

“My inspiration comes from you,”—­he repeated—­“The tender look of your eyes fills me with dreams which might—­I do not say would—­ realise themselves in a life’s renown—­but all this is perhaps nothing to you.  What, after all, can I offer you?  Nothing but love!  And here in Florence you could command more lovers than there are days in the week, did you choose—­but people say you are untouchable by love even at its best.  Now I—­”

Here he stopped abruptly and laid down his brush, looking full at her.

“I,” he continued—­“love you at neither best nor worst, but simply and entirely with all of myself—­all that a man can be in passionate heart, soul and body!”

(How the words rang out!  I could have sworn they were spoken close beside me and not by dream-voices in a dream!)

“If you loved me—­ah God!—­what that would mean!  If you dared to brave everything—­if you had the courage of love to break down all barriers between yourself and me!—­but you will not do this—­the sacrifice would be too great—­too unusual—­”

“You think it would?”

The question was scarcely breathed.  A look of sudden amazement lightened his face—­then he replied, gently—­

“I think it would!  Women are impulsive,—­generous to a fault—­they give what they afterwards regret—­who can blame them!  You have much to lose by such a sacrifice as I should ask of you—­I have all to gain.  I must not be selfish.  But I love you!—­and your love would be to more than the hope of Heaven!”