“I wish you had it!”
“Hugh—I won’t have you say that; but it seems so strange. Why, don’t you want to say the words rightly?”
“Oh, yes!” said Violante, misunderstanding.
“I mean,” cried Rosa, eagerly, “don’t you feel as if you were Zerlina, as if it had all happened to yourself—doesn’t it seem real to you?”
“No!”
“Why, it carries me away even to see you do it. Why! I could express so all sorts of feelings. Don’t you know, Violante, there is so much within us that cannot come out, and art—music—acting is a means of expressing it. I should feel myself that I—I myself—had offended my lover, and wanted to coax him to be friends. Don’t you see?”
“I never would!” said Violante, half to herself. “I never could!”
“I don’t believe you have a scrap of imagination,” cried Rosa, growing excited.
“Of course, it is not the same thing. Can’t you translate your feelings into the other girl’s nature. You have feelings. Now I would show through my acting all that must be buried else. When I came to happy scenes acting them would be something like happiness, sad ones would be a relief, and if—only if—Violante, I had ever cared for anyone, I should know how to say those words, and even the shadow of the past would be sweet—”
“Oh, Rosa,” faltered Violante, hot and shame-faced, “as if he could remind me—”