Still she did not speak. The butterflies fluttered past her face, but she did not follow them with her eyes.
“Sweet one, I grow alarmed,” he said; “pray tell me all that is on your mind—in your heart. I think I can promise you that its weight will be lessened when you have told me of it.”
“Alas!” she said, “nothing can lessen my fault—my shame.”
“That is a word which I will not allow any one to speak in connection with you,” he said. “You cannot frighten me, my dear; I have looked into your eyes.”
“I have been guilty—I am ashamed. I gave you my promise, not because I loved you, or because I hoped to love you, but solely because singing in public had become so great a terror to me that I welcomed the earliest chance that came of freeing myself. Let me take back my promise. I am unworthy of so good a man.”
“And that is your whole confession?”
“Ah! is it not enough? I tell you that I gave you my promise only because I was selfish. I was ready to sacrifice you so that I might gain my own ends.”
“Ah, surely that were to pay too heavy a price for your freedom!” said he. “What! you were willing to submit to the rule of an elderly and arbitrary husband so that you might escape from the irksome flatteries of the crowds of discriminating people who have always delighted to do you honour? Do you wonder that I ask you if you do not think that you offered too high a price for what you hoped to gain?”
“Oh, if you could but know what I have felt, what I still feel about this life which I have been forced to lead, you would pity me and perhaps forgive me for the wrong which I offered to you! But no one seems to understand that it is just because I feel singing to be so great a gift, so divine a gift, that I shrink from exercising whatever of that gift has been given to me by God, only for the amusement of people who are incapable of understanding anything of the beauty—of the real meaning of music. Oh, I tell you, Mr. Long, I have felt, every time I have sung for such people, as if I were guilty of a great profanation of something that is quite holy. Indeed, I tell you the truth, and, knowing it, I think that you will forgive me for promising to marry you in order to escape from a life that had become quite intolerable to me.”