‘Why should we care about the world?’ Paul asked. ‘What has the world to do with us so long as we can be happy?’
‘But I don’t love you in that way, Paul,’ said Claudia. She leaned forward and sideways, and looked gravely in his eyes. ‘I love you very much, dear Paul—very, very much indeed—and I shall be grieved to lose you.’
‘I shan’t lose you,’ said Paul. ‘I have made my mind up.’
‘You dear boy!’ she said, and kissed him; but when he would have embraced her she drew back with a warning forefinger upraised. ‘You must not presume upon my kindness, Paul; but I know that I can trust you. I should not have asked you to meet me here if I had not been sure of that.’
‘Claudia,’ cried Paul, rising and pacing about the room, ‘have some pity. I am not a child; I am a man. I can’t bear this. You must be everything or you must be nothing.’
‘Nothing, Paul?’ said Claudia, with grave, accusing eyes and wounded face and voice. ‘Nothing?’
It was exquisite practice, and she was a hundred times a better actress off the boards than on. Paul could appreciate her art at its full value in later years, but just now he found earnestness enough for two, and would have broken his heart outright if he had known how she was playing with him.
‘Nothing or all,’ he said. ‘You treat me like a child, Claudia, but I am a man, if I am only a little over one-and-twenty. I have a man’s heart and a man’s blood in my veins. No. Don’t come near me yet; I want to be my own master.’
‘Oh, Paul, dear!’ said Claudia; ‘you mustn’t talk so I never thought you felt so deeply. How could I? Must it all be over, Paul? Are they all gone, dear—all the happy, peaceful, tranquil hours? Can’t I give my little brother Paul a simple kiss without making such a tempest?’
‘I have had no peaceful, tranquil hours,’ cried Paul. ‘Oh, Claudia! Claudia!’