“Cara Si’ora, I may be far away. It would be a bad thing for you to depend on my memory for the means of living. Let us be reasonable and business-like. I shall see to this matter to-morrow. And now, good-bye.”
He rose, and took up his hat. Lisa hung about him, very pale, and with her full lower lip quivering like the lip of a child that is trying not to cry.
“Why are you doing this? why are you changing to me?” she asked piteously.
“I am not changing, Lisa. There is no thought of change in me. Only you must be reasonable. There is a dark secret between us—the memory of that fatal night in Venice. It is not well that we should meet often. We cannot see each other without remembering——”
“I remember nothing when I am with you—gnente, gnente!” she cried passionately. “Nothing except that I love you—love you with all my heart and soul.”
She tried to throw herself upon his breast, but as he recoiled, astonished and infinitely pained, she fell on her knees at his feet, and clasped his hand in both of hers, and kissed and cried over it.
“I love you,” she repeated; “and you—you have loved me—you must have loved me—a little. No man was ever so kind as you have been, except for love’s sake. You must have cared for me. You cared for me that day in Venice—the happiest day in my life. Your heart turned to me as my heart turned to you, in the sunshine on the lagune, in the evening at the theatre. Every day that I have lived since then has strengthened my love. For God’s sake, don’t tell me that I am nothing to you.”
“You are very much to me, Lisa. You are a friend for whom I desire all good things that this world and the world that comes after death can give. Get off your knees, child. This is childish folly; no wiser than Paolo’s anger when you won’t let him have all his own way. Come, Si’ora mia, let us laugh and be friends.”
He tried to make light of her feelings; but she gave him a look that frightened him, a look of unmitigated despair.
“I thought you loved me; that by-and-by, when I was a famous singer, you would marry me. I should be good enough then to be your wife. You would forget that I was once a poor working girl at Burano. But I was foolish; yes, foolish. I could never be good enough to be your wife—I, the mother of Paolo. Let me go on loving you. Only come to see me sometimes—once a week, perhaps! The weeks are so long when you don’t come. Only care for me a little, just a little, and I shall be happy. See how little I am asking. Don’t forsake me, don’t abandon me.”