“But my voice may not be gone,” urged Emilia.  “I may sing to you to-morrow—­this evening.  It must be the fog.  Why do you think it lost?  It can’t be—­”

“Cracked!” cried Mr. Pericles.

“It is not!  No; do not think it.  I may stay here.  Don’t tell me to go yet.  The streets make me wish to die.  And I feel I may, perhaps, sing presently.  Wait.  Will you wait?”

A hideous imitation of her lamentable tones burst from Mr. Pericles.  “Cracked!” he cried again.

Emilia lifted her eyes, and looked at him steadily.  She saw the idea grow in the eyes fronting her that she had a pleasant face, and she at once staked this little bit of newly-conceived worth on an immediate chance.  Remember; that she was as near despair as a creature constituted so healthily could go.  Speaking no longer in a girlish style, but with the grave pleading manner of a woman, she begged Mr. Pericles to take her to Italy, and have faith in the recovery of her voice.  He, however, far from being softened, as he grew aware of her sweetness of feature, waxed violent and insulting.

“Take me,” she said.  “My voice will reward you.  I feel that you can cure it.”

“For zat man! to go to him again!” Mr. Pericles sneered.

“I never shall do that.”  There sprang a glitter as of steel in Emilia’s eyes.  “I will make myself yours for life, if you like.  Take my hand, and let me swear.  I do not break my word.  I will swear, that if I recover my voice to become what you expected,—­I will marry you whenever you ask me, and then—­”

More she was saying, but Mr. Pericles, sputtering a laugh of “Sanks!” presented a postured supplication for silence.

“I am not a man who marries.”

He plainly stated the relations that the woman whom he had distinguished by the honours of selection must hold toward him.

Emilia’s cheeks did not redden; but, without any notion of shame at the words she listened to, she felt herself falling lower and lower the more her spirit clung to Mr. Pericles:  yet he alone was her visible personification of hope, and she could not turn from him.  If he cast her off, it seemed to her that her voice was condemned.  She stood there still, and the cold-eyed Greek formed his opinion.

He was evidently undecided as regards his own course of proceeding, for his chin was pressed by thumb and forefinger hard into his throat, while his eyebrows were wrinkled up to their highest elevation.  From this attitude, expressive of the accurate balancing of the claims of an internal debate, he emerged into the posture of a cock crowing, and Emilia heard again his bitter mimicry of her miserable broken tones, followed by Ha! dam!  Basta! basta!”

“Sit here,” cried Mr. Pericles.  He had thrown himself into a chair, and pointed to his knee.

Emilia remained where she was standing.

He caught at her hand, but she plucked that from him.  Mr. Pericles rose, sounding a cynical “Hein!”