“Every place is the place—every time is the time—and you—you are the only one,” said he, becoming more fervent every moment. “If you and I were alone—but we are alone—our love isolates us—we are alone in the splendid isolation of our love. What are these people who are about us? They are nothing to us—less than nothing. What are the people in a church to the devout one who enters and keeps his eyes fixed upon the lovely face of the saint to whom he prays. The saint and he are in communion together, and their communion isolates them though the church is crowded? I keep my eyes of devotion upon your face, my beautiful saint, and I am rapt with the glory of this hour—we are carried away on the wings of our love until the world is too far beneath us to be seen—only the heaven is revealed to us—to me—I look into your face and I have a glimpse of heaven itself! Ah, gentle saint, you will not deny me a response—one word—only lift up your eyes—let our eyes meet and it will be as if our lips had met. I am but a mortal, but I feel, gazing into the face of my saint, as if I were immortal—immortal and crossing the threshold of the heaven that is hers—I feel that we are equal—”
She drew in her breath—the sound was something like a gasp—the gasp of one who has been swept away into the midst of a swirling sea and made breathless. She had been swept away on the amazing flood of his words; it was not until he had said that word “equal” that she felt herself swirled into the air once more, so to speak, and gave that gasp for breath: he, too, was breathless after his long and fervid outburst, repressed as to tone, but sounding therefore all the more passionate. Her gasp sounded like a sigh; his like a sob.
“Not yet—not yet,” she said in a whisper—disjointed and staccato. “I cannot listen to you yet. I dare not—I have my pride.”
“Pride? What is pride? How have I wounded your pride?” he said. “Ah, my God! you cannot think that I would propose anything that is not honourable? You do not look on me as such a wretch? Ah, you cannot.”
“Oh, no, no,” she said quickly. “I would trust you. I have looked into your face. I have heard you sing.”
“You place your faith in me? But you cannot do that unless you love me. And if you love me—have I been too headlong? Have I startled you? But surely you must have seen that on the very first day we met, before I had been an hour in your presence, my life was yours. I tell you that I knew it—not an hour—one glance was enough to tell me that I was all yours, and that for me no other one lived or would ever live in the world. What have you to say? Do not you believe me? What did you mean by that word ‘pride’? It does not seem to me that it had any connection with you or me.”
“Do not ask me to explain anything just now,” she said. “You would not like to be asked to explain how you came to—to—think of me—to feel in regard to me as you have said you do—”
“Why should I shrink from it?” he asked. “But no one who has seen you would put such a question to me. I loved you because you were—you. Is not that enough? It would be sufficient for anyone who knew you. I saw you sitting there—so sweetly timid—a little flower that is so startled to find itself awakened into life in the spring, that it would fain ask the earth to hide it again. I thought of you as that modest little flower—a violet trying to obscure its own charm by the leaves that surround it; but all in vain—in vain, for its presence has given a subtle perfume to the air, and all who breathe of its delicate sweetness take the spirit of the spring into their souls and know that a violet is there, though hidden from their view. That is how I saw you. I have always loved the violet, and felt that shyness and sweetness were ever one; and am I to be reproached if I have a longing to pluck my violet and have her ever with me?”
“This is madness—the poetry of madness,” she cried, and there was really a piteous note in her voice. “But if I did not believe that you feel every word that you have spoken, I would let you continue, and drink in the sweetness of every word that falls from your lips. It is because I know that you are speaking from your heart and because I also know my own unworthiness that I pray of you to say no more—yet.”
“Why should I not tell you the truth, if you confess that you believe I am speaking sincerely?”