'Forgive me,' he humbly said, 'but the idea of losing you is unendurable.'
'But we must part—better now than later. Later on we should suffer much more; I should be more in the wrong, and you would have a better right to accuse me. Habit aggravates and intensifies love. A day would come when we could not possibly separate—a day of exultation for you, of shame for me. Now—we are still free. What are we to each other? Nothing—and it is best so. We have seen one another four or five times——'
'I have always seen you.'
'In the midst of life's frivolities——'
'I wept with you when you wept in the Pantheon.'
'Among inquisitive, evil-minded people——'
'I watched you for an hour, that day, from the Ponte Nomentano, when you let the rose-leaves drift on the current of the Aniene. You were alone—we were alone——'
'Among the conventional formalities of political life——'
'How lovely you were that night at the Quirinal ball! I went away with you. You did not speak. You said nothing to me. How lovely you were!'
'It is a dream—it is a dream,' she returned, inspired to the sacrifice by his vibrant words of love. 'We must awake; we must part.'