HELEN (sadly and humbly).—“A part! Oh, no! A part? I don’t understand you.”
VIOLANTE.—“Take the child Beatrice from Dante’s life, and should we have a Dante? What is a poet’s genius but the voice of its emotions? All things in life and in Nature influence genius; but what influences it the most are its own sorrows and affections.”
Helen looks softly into Violante’s eloquent face, and draws nearer to her in tender silence.
VIOLANTE (suddenly).—“Yes, Helen, yes,—I know by my own heart how to read yours. Such memories are ineffaceable. Few guess what strange self-weavers of our own destinies we women are in our veriest childhood!” She sunk her voice into a whisper: “How could Leonard fail to be dear to you,—dear as you to him,—dearer than all others?”
HELEN (shrinking back, and greatly disturbed).—“Hush, hush! you must not speak to me thus; it is wicked,—I cannot bear it. I would not have it be so; it must not be,—it cannot!”
She clasped her hands over her eyes for a moment, and then lifted her face, and the face was very sad, but very calm.
VIOLANTE (twining her arm round Helen’s waist).—“How have I wounded you,—how offended? Forgive me, but why is this wicked? Why must it not be? Is it because he is below you in birth?”
HELEN.—“No, no,—I never thought of that. And what am I? Don’t ask me,—I cannot answer. You are wrong, quite wrong as to me. I can only look on Leonard as—as a brother. But—but, you can speak to him more freely than I can. I would not have him waste his heart on me, nor yet think me unkind and distant, as I seem. I know not what I say. But—but—break to him—indirectly—gently—that duty in both forbids us both to—to be more than friends—than—”
“Helen, Helen!” cried Violante, in her warm, generous passion, “your heart betrays you in every word you say. You weep; lean on me, whisper to me; why—why is this? Do you fear that your guardian would not consent? He not consent? He who—”
HELEN.—“Cease—cease—cease!”