He glanced at her with sudden interest.
"Which, of all the characters you represent, do you prefer?" he asked.
"I can hardly tell you. I like Norma very much—the stately, proud, loving woman, who has struggled so much with her pride, with her sense of duty, with her sacred character, who fought human love inch by inch, who yielded at last; who made the greatest sacrifice a woman could make, who risked her life and dearer than her life for her love. All the passion and power in my nature rises to that character."
"That is easily seen," he replied. "There have been many Normas, but none like you."
Her face brightened; it was so sweet to be praised by him!
"And then," she continued, "the grand tragedy of passion and despair, the noble, queenly woman who has sacrificed everything to the man she loves finds that she has a rival—a young, beautiful, beloved rival." She clasped her hands with the manner of a queen. "My whole soul rises to that," she continued; "I understand it—the passion, the anguish, the despair!"
His dark eyes, full of admiration, were riveted on her.
"Who would have thought," he said, gravely, "that you had such a marvel of genius in you?"
"You are very good to call it genius," she said. "I always knew I had something in me that was not to be described or understood—something that made me different from other people; but I never knew what it was. Do you know those two lines:
"'The poets learn in suffering
What they tell in song.'