"Ah!" he said, "and what did the fellow want who calls such a flower his own, and knows not how to enjoy its fragrance?"
"For him it never shall be fragrant," she said with a vibration in her voice, which recalled the previous scene. "He tormented me," she continued, "with reproofs--with jealousy."
She stammered, then she raised the beautiful head from his shoulder, slipped back a little and replaced it on her crimson cushion, but she still retained his hand.
"Before," she said, "when he used to reproach me, and act Othello, because this or that gentleman looked at me too often, or another had smiled when he saw me, I was quite indifferent; I despised it all, and answered without my heart beating faster, or my eyes being cast down, but now," she added, tears coming to the eyes she rested on him, and the rosy ribbons on her breast rising and falling quickly from her emotion, "now I tremble; I wish to hide my eyes with a thick veil; my heart beats fast, as the blood throbs through my veins, for--"
Again she threw herself into his arms, leant her head as if exhausted on his breast and whispered,
"For now I love!"
He bent over her and pressed her to himself.
"And do you repent it?"
"No," she replied passionately; "but it humbles me when I remember that he is still my husband, on whom I am dependent--dependent," she stammered, in a low voice, "in all material things; and he makes me feel this dependence--feel it bitterly."
"And why," he interrupted, "should you be dependent upon him? Why remember such dependence for a moment? Have you not a friend, a slave, who would be too happy if you would but tell him what you want, all that you wish?"