Sybil's dark eyes dilated with pain. Her need of sympathy was so great that those icy tones turned her faint with misery.
"It was hard enough before," she murmured, and a piteous quiver came about her lips.
He had been mortified, humbled, and wounded when she shrank so from acting with him again. He thought it signified bitter hate, unconquerable aversion; and, instead, it had been an expression of terror, a confession of a weakness which she only began to realize when she found how hard if was not to yield at once to his pleading. There was something so pathetic, so unconsciously pleading in those words, "It was hard enough before," that he asked pardon, and went gravely on: "It is my duty to obey your wishes so far as my power goes. I cannot take off the play; you will understand yourself when you have time for thought, but being a gentleman, at least superficially [he corrected himself with a flush rising to his face], I will not publicly force my companionship upon you as Romeo, to your private annoyance [his voice shook a little in spite of himself, and he paused a moment]. I will put things in motion at once—looking to your relief."
Sybil sank into the corner of the couch, and, folding her arms upon a pillow, buried her face in the loose sleeve of her kimona.
"My throat," he went on, "can be in bad shape, and a drop of atropia now and then will keep me hoarse enough for our purpose—just at first. Young Fitzallen [Sybil's hand clenched suddenly], who is quite up in the lines, will take my place 'at short notice to oblige,' and—and, well, after a while we will find some excuse for continuing him in the part. 'Sufficient unto the day,' I have to scurry a bit about the printing and the finding of the young man. He will have to wear some of my costumes; you won't mind that, I hope—Monday night is so very close. He will come over here about ten or half-past in the morning to rehearse with you, and you must be very exacting about the 'business.' See that nothing is forgotten; the public is quick to miss anything it has become accustomed to. The balcony scene [the girl's figure seemed to writhe among the cushions] is—very—important—and—" He stopped, and then quite suddenly he turned toward the door, saying: "I'll do my best to save you from the degradation you dread. I'll send your new Romeo to you early."
Like pictures on a scroll, she saw all the tender love-scenes, growing one out from another, ever sweeter, stronger, more intense, and at the balcony of Juliet's chamber, at the farewell embrace—that the applause made long—she thought "another's arms about me, another's eyes searching mine," and so, shuddering, repulsion seized upon her and wrung from her lips the cry: "No! no! don't! Oh, don't! I could not bear it—I should die!"
She was standing, one bent knee among the cushions, leaning forward on one supporting arm. He turned. "Sybil—do you mean—you will have mercy on me—that you will try for art's sake to forget the man in the actor? Oh, beloved, if you could believe! To my arid life you brought freshness and strength and reverence—yes, in spite of my sin against you, oh, wife of my soul! Pity me! my sin is very hard to bear!"
Suddenly she stretched out her arms to him. With wide, almost unbelieving eyes he sank on his knees before her, asking, faintly: "You pity me? But, oh, you cannot forgive?"
She took his head between her hands and kissed his brow, saying: "To love is to forgive!"
He gave a cry and started to his feet. A deadly paleness came upon her face.