"You have your wife," she hurried on, "your home, your boy. That is enough. That"—
"That is not enough," he interrupted, with an emphasis, which seemed stern. "Helen, I shall not talk love to you. I am another woman's husband. I made a ghastly mistake when I married Ninitta, but it is done. She loves me; she is happy, and I love"—his voice faltered into a wonderful softness more eloquent than words,—"I love Nino."
She would not let him go on. She sprang up and ran to him, taking his hands in hers with a touch that made his blood rush tingling through his veins.
"Yes," she cried, "you love Nino! Think of that! Think most of all that whatever you are, good or bad, you are for your son, for Nino! Come! There is safety for us in that. We will go and talk with Nino between us. Then we shall say nothing of which we can be ashamed or regret."
There came to Herman a vision of his boy clasped in Helen's arms which made him feel as if suffocating with the excess of his emotion. He rose blindly, only half conscious of what he was doing; and without giving time for objections Helen hastened to dress herself for the street, and in a few moments they were walking together toward the sculptor's house.
To Herman's surprise, his wife was absent when he reached home. The maid did not know where she had gone. She often went out in the morning without saying where she was going, and of course the servant did not ask.
"That is odd," Herman said; "but she has probably gone shopping or something of the sort. It is too bad, she had so set her heart on showing you the bambino, as she calls him, herself."
But it proved that Nino also was out, having been taken for a walk; and so Helen, who returned home at once, saw neither of them.
VII
THIS DEED UNSHAPES ME.
Measure for Measure; iv.—4.