'When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late. . . '?”
There was a long pause before he started up, with his hand pressed to his forehead. He looked at her strangely for a moment, and then walked slowly away from her with his head bent. Before he had taken more than a dozen steps, however, he stopped, and, after another moment of indecision, hastened back to her and offered her his hand, saying—
“I am but a man; I can think nothing of you but what is good.”
“Yes,” she said; “it is only a woman who can think everything that is evil about a woman. It is not by men that women are deceived to their own destruction, but by women.”
She sprang to her feet and laid her hand upon his arm once again.
“Let us go away,” she said. “I am sick of this place. There is no corner of it that is not penetrated by the Agujari's singing. Was there ever any singing so detestable? And they pay her fifty guineas a song! I would pay fifty guineas to get out of earshot of the best of her efforts.” Her laugh had a shrill note that caused it to sound very pitiful to the man who heard it.
He spoke no word, but led her tenderly back to where her mother was standing with Burke and her son.
“I do hope that you have not missed Agujari's last song,” said Mrs. Horneck. “We have been entranced with its melody.”
“Oh, no; I have missed no note of it—no note. Was there ever anything so delicious—so liquid-sweet? Is it not time that we went homeward, mother? I do feel a little tired, in spite of the Agujari.”