"I went to the Opera House on Monday. But that, like everything else, isn't the same without you, dear. The woman who played Juliet was, I believe, rather good-looking, but I scarcely noticed her in worrying over the pitiful circumstance that the Apothecary and the Populace of Verona had only one pair of shoes between them. Besides, Mercutio kept putting on a bathrobe and insisting he was Friar Laurence…. I would write more about it, if I had not almost used up all my paper. There is just room to say—"
6
This was, as I have stated, on Thursday afternoon. Upon the following evening—
"And why not?" I demanded, for the ninth time.
But she was resolute. "Oh, it is dear of you!" she cried; "and I—I do care for you,—how could I help it? But it can't be,—it can't ever be," she repeated wearily; and then she looked at me, and smiled a little. "Oh, boy, boy! dear, dear boy!" she murmured, half in wonder, "how foolish of you and—how dear of you!"
"And why not?" said I—for the tenth time.
She gave a sobbing laugh. "Oh, the great, brave, stupid boy!" she said, and, for a moment, her hand rested on my hair; "he doesn't know what he is doing,—ah, no, he doesn't know! Why, I might hold you to your word! I might sue you for breach of promise! I might marry you out of hand! Think of that! Why I am only a strolling actress, and fair game for any man,—any man who isn't particular," she added, with the first trace of bitterness I had ever observed in her odd, throaty voice. "And you would marry me,—you! you would give me your name, you would make me your wife! You have actually begged me to be your wife, haven't you? Ah, my brave, strong, stupid Bobbie, how many women must love you,—women who have a right to love you! And you would give them all up for me,—for me, you foolish Bobbie, whom you haven't known a week! Ah, how dear of you!" And she caught her breath swiftly, and her voice broke.
"Yes," I brazenly confessed; "I really believe I would give them all up—every blessed one of them—for you." I inspected her, critically, and then smiled. "And I don't think that I would be deserving any very great credit for self sacrifice, either, Signorina."
"My dear," she answered, "it pleases you to call me old Capulet's daughter,—but if I were only a Capulet, and you a Montague, don't you see how much easier it would be? But we don't belong to rival families, we belong to rival worlds, to two worlds that have nothing in common, and never can have anything in common. They are too strong for us, Bobbie,—my big, dark, squalid world, that you could never sink to, and your gay little world which I can never climb to,—your world that would have none of me, even if—even if—" But the condition was not forthcoming.
"The world," said I, in an equable tone—"My dear, I may as well warn you I am shockingly given to short and expressive terms, and as we are likely to see a deal of each other for the future, you will have to be lenient with them,—accordingly, I repeat, the world may be damned."