'And me?——you——'
She looked down puzzled at her lover writhing at her feet, his face haggard and drawn, waiting for the words he was trying to draw out of her.
'And me?——'
'Ah! you——I love you——'
'That is it! That is it!—Say it again—again——'
She did so, quite unsuspecting. He felt a spasm of inexpressible pleasure.
'Why do you shut your eyes?' she asked, not because of any suspicion in her mind, but to lead him on to explain his emotion.
'So that I may die.'
He laid his head on her knee and remained for some minutes in that attitude, silent and abstracted. She gently stroked his hair, his brow—that brow behind which his infamous imagination was working. Shadows began to fill the room, and the fragrance of the flowers and the aromatic beverage mingled in the air; the outlines of the surrounding objects melted into one vague form, harmonious, dim, unsubstantial.
Presently she said: 'Get up, dearest, I must go. It is getting late.'