"Yes, I will go."
They walked along, side by side, toward the closed mansion. Stelio fell back a step, that he might observe the actress, that he might behold her grace as she walked in that warm, dead air. With his ardent gaze he seemed to embrace her whole person: the line of her shoulders sloping with noble grace, the free and pliant waist on the strong hips, the knees that moved lightly among the folds of her robe, and that pale, passionate face, those eloquent lips, that brow, lofty and beautiful as that of a man, the fringe of dark lashes over the elongated eyes, that sometimes were clouded over, as if tears rose to them and remained unshed—the whole passionate face full of lights and shadows, love and sadness, feverish force and quivering life.
"I love you! I love you! You alone please me! Everything about you pleases me!" he said to her suddenly, whispering the words close to her cheek. He was now walking so close as almost to press against her, as he accommodated his step to hers, his arm passed under her arm. He could not bear to know that she was seized with startled anguish at those terrible warning words.
She trembled, stopped; her eyelids drooped, her cheeks turned pale.
"My friend!" she said, in a tone so faint that the two words seemed modulated less by her lips than by the rare smile of her spirit.
Her sudden sadness melted away, changed into a wave of tenderness that poured in a lavish flood over her friend. Her unbounded gratitude inspired her with an eager desire to find some great gift for him.
"Tell me, Stelio, what can I do for thee?"
She imagined some marvelous test, some unheard-of proof of love. "Let me serve! Let me serve!" cried her heart. She yearned to own the whole earth, that she might offer it to him.
"What dost thou wish? Tell me—what can I do for thee?"