“And has it brought you to this pass?”
“Yes, if pass you call it.”
“Then, Mariana, give it up!”
For her the dimness of the room had vanished, its fantasies and ghostly shadows thrown off with one great effort. She grasped the other’s arms in both her hands, and stared at her, taller by her sudden force and fierceness. The other looked at her, and then recoiled.
“Give it up! The only joy of life—the only life beyond a dull existence! Why, I should die—the very thought would kill me.”
“No! It would make you live!”
But Mariana only looked at her, and shook her head.
“Rosalie, can I play? Can you make anything out of it?”
“I never heard such music; but it is wrong—it’s the wrong sort.”
Then Mariana came close up to her, just as before she had drawn back, and, with a sudden weakness, drooped her head upon the other’s shoulder, clasping her hands about her waist.