“These last days, when I’ve told you that, you’ve thought it all an idle threat. You’ve deceived yourself, Maurice. I shall go away this evening.”
At other times when she had tempted him thus he had put aside her plan as impractical, even going so far once as to offer to leave first and send for her afterward when he should have obtained something to do in Paris. Disturbed, frightened, beggared of devices before this new assault, more keen than any of the others, and more pressing, he found himself trying still to hold her back.
“Hush! I’m staying here, and I love you.”
For the third time, masterful and overwrought, she repeated:
“I shall leave to-night. The train for Italy passes through at midnight. At midnight I shall be free.”
He knotted his hands in despair.
“Hush!”
“Free to cry out my love. Free, if you’re not there, to taste this new joy of crying without constraint. Free to adore you, if you come.”
“For pity’s sake don’t tempt me any more.”
“I’m suffocated in this town of yours. Its old houses smell musty. I am suffocated with tenderness, do you see? Here we shall always be kept apart. I want to enjoy my sorrow if you don’t come: if you do come I want to live and breathe. Will you come? Will you come to-night?”