"There!" she said with pride.
They stood in the silent and deserted square, looking at the house, at the peacock, at the windows where in the light of the street-lamp the purple letters of "Angélique" might be deciphered.
A clock struck eleven.
"I’ll have to hurry home," said Angelica. "Mother’ll worry."
She was reluctant, for she had been happy in her fool’s paradise. Of course it couldn’t last, this friendly communion with the man she found above all other people in the world supremely interesting, supremely attractive. She knew all about him, she didn’t trust him; but it was something just to be with him, so happily, for this one last time.
All the old magic came flowing back into her heart, there in the tiny park, with the dead leaves blowing down the paths, and a sharp white moon to be seen now and then as the wispy clouds drew across it. That yearning for his sympathy, for his love, positively tormented her. She longed and longed to draw near to him, to feel his arm about her.
As always, his instinct warned him of his moment. His hold on her arm tightened.
"Don’t go!" he said. "Let’s have just this hour! Angelica, imagine—if we had a little room here, some little place all to ourselves! And I’d wait at home for you, and write and dream about you, and long for you all day, while you sat there in your shop, bending your dear, dark head over your work. You’d work for me, until I grew famous—and then I’d make a queen—an empress of you, my beloved woman!"
"Don’t begin that!" she entreated. "We’ve had such a nice time!"
"But think of it! Think of sitting together in the dark, in our poor little room, our arms about each other, weary, harassed, finding our joy and consolation only in those hours together—living just for that! Oh, Angelica! Angelica! Hasn’t this long, weary parting been just an interlude? Can’t we begin again? Take me back! Forgive me and love me and make me over. Make me what you wish. Come back to me! Come back to me! I need you so terribly!"