"'But perhaps you will think me very vain?' she asked at last, very quietly.
"'Because you are thinking you will make me wretched by what you are going to say?'
"'Oh, you are too quick!' she murmured. And she raised her head on her elbow and looked at me.
"'Dear Noël Anson,' she said, 'our lives go different ways. To-day we had never met, and to-morrow it must be as though we had never met. For life is not a romance, it is a reality, and it is much stronger than our—inclinations? And even if I loved you it would be the same, I should be saying what I am saying now, because in me there is something much stronger than love, much more inevitable.... Please, you must believe me, it will hurt me if you do not believe me. I am not playing any more. I do not play with memories of crushed orchids, because it is only fools who think there is no pleasure in being serious ... just sometimes.'
"'It is no use for me to say any more,' she said, 'because if you like me very much then, anyway, you will be bitter about me—and if you do not like me very much then you will only think me (how is it?) an odd sort of woman.... I command you, and I put you on your honour to obey, that when you leave this house you will go into the brougham waiting for you without looking to see the number of the house, nor the name of the street, so that you will never see me again, you man.... But it is now very, very late, you must go, Don Noël, you must go! And take with you my blessings—Adieu!'
"But I can only repeat her words to you barely and crudely. I can't hope to give you the tragic gesture of impotence in her voice, and the way her voice grew lighter and lighter until it seemed to become part of the air, as impalpable, as mysterious. And at the end her voice had died down to almost less than a whisper, her 'adieu' had fainted between her tongue and her lips, it was only a wisp of a dying word. It was strangely as though she were rehearsing something she might have to say sometime.... She was only rehearsing. I waited.
"'Oh, but isn't that enough!' she almost cried, suddenly. 'Have I not done it quite, quite well, or do you want me to think of something else—something more ... more dramatic?'
"'Please, please do make it easy for me, Don Noël—do go away, please!' she begged. 'This is so difficult, so much more difficult than I.... It is not a tragedy, this, remember! It is an incident, and the incident is finished, that's all. Don't please let me make a tragedy of it—by apologising! You see, my Noël, I am so weak, so weak. I feel such a bad woman, such a brute.... And you can never understand why, never.... Forgive me, and go!'
"Her very last word was almost brutal in its defined meaning, it held no uncertainty; but I didn't move at that moment. I remembered that I did not know her name.
"'A few moments ago, before you spoke, I had a dream,' I said. 'And in my dream I was told that you would tell me your name, the name that will explain the initials under the coronet on your hairbrushes. The adventure would not have been so complete without a coronet, so I looked to see if one was there, and behold! it was there. I am such a snob, I would like to know your name.... And then I would forget it.'