"Far from it; by-and-by I may even spare a tear for you—if you do not spoil the day by being clumsy at the end."
"Ah, Rosalie," cried the susceptible poet, "how can I bear the parting? What is France without you? I am no longer a Frenchman—my true home is now England! My heart will hunger for it, my thoughts will stretch themselves to it across the sea; banished to Montmartre, I shall mourn daily for the white cliffs of Albion, for Soho, and for you!"
"I, too, shall remember," she murmured. "But perhaps one of these days you will come to England again?"
"If the fare could be paid with devotion, I would come every Sunday, but how can I hope to amass enough money? Such things do not happen twice. No, I will not deceive myself—this is our farewell. See!" He rose, and turned the little clock with its face to the wall. "When that clock strikes, I must go to catch my train—in the meantime we will ignore the march of time. Farewells, tears, regrets, let us forget that they exist—let us drink the last glass together gaily, mignonne!"
They pledged each other with brave smiles, hand in hand. And now their chatter became fast and furious, to drown the clock's impatient tick.
The clockwork wheezed and whirred.
"'Tis going to part us," shouted Tricotrin; "laugh, laugh, Beloved, so that we may not hear!"
"Kiss me," she cried; "while the hour sounds, you shall hold me in your arms!"
"Heaven," gasped the young man, as the too brief embrace concluded, "how I wish it had been striking midnight!"
The next moment came the separation. He descended the stairs; at the window she waved her hand to him. And in the darkness of an "English hansom" the poet covered his face and wept.