“Unintelligible to you? I am unintelligible to myself,” cried Ella. “Why should I be tramping up and down your room when I might be at this very moment——” She clutched Phyllis’ arm. “I want to stay with you all night,” she whispered. “I want to sleep in your bed with you, Phyllis. I want to feel your arms around me as I used to feel my mother’s long ago. Whatever I may say, you will not let me go, Phyllis?”
“I will load you with chains,” said Phyllis, patting her lovely hair—it was no longer smooth. “Why should you want to go away from me? Cannot we be happy together once again as we used to be long ago?”
“How long ago that was! And we read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ together, and fancied that we had gone down to the very depths of its meaning. We fancied that we had sounded the very depths of its passion and pathos. We were only girls. Ah, Phyllis, I tell you—I, who know—I, who have found it out,—I tell you that the tragedy is the tragedy of all lovers who have ever lived in the world. I tell you that it is the tragedy of love itself. ‘Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!’ That is the poem that the heart of the lover sings all day—all day! I have heard it—my heart has sung it. I have heard the passionate gallop of those fiery-footed steeds. I have listened to them while my heart beat in unison with their frantic career—all day counting the moments with fiery face, and then—then—something that was not passion forced me to fly from it for the salvation of my soul. I was a fool! Why am I here, when I should be where he——What is the hour? Why, it is scarcely twelve o’clock! Did I say nine in my letter? What does it matter? I wonder if on that wonderful night—Gounod translated its glory into music—Juliet kept her lover waiting for three hours.”
“What are you doing?” cried Phyllis, rising.
Ella had picked up her theatre wrap—it was a summer cloud brocaded with golden threads of quivering sunlight, and had flung it around her.
She held out a hand to Phyllis. Phyllis grasped her round the waist.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“To hell!”
She had whispered the words, and at their utterance Phyllis gave a cry of horror and covered her face with her hands.
Had she seen a suggestion of the satyr in the expression of that lovely face before her?