"'Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No, she never loved me truly; love is love forevermore.'"
"Forevermore," Leslie Dane repeated with something like a sigh.
He rose and began to pace the floor with bowed head and arms folded over his breast.
"Carl," he said suddenly, "I have had enough of Paris. Have you?"
"What, in seven days? Why, my dear fellow, I have just begun to enjoy myself. I have only had a taste of pleasure yet."
"I am going back to Rome to-day," continued Leslie.
"I should like to know why you have made this sudden decision, Leslie—for it is sudden, is it not?" asked Carl, pointedly.
Leslie Dane flushed scarlet, then paled again.
"Yes, it is sudden," he answered, constrainedly, "but none the less decisive. Don't try to argue me out of it, Carl, for that would be useless. Believe me, it is much better that I should go. I want to get to work again."
"There is something more than work at the bottom of this sudden move," said Carl Muller, quietly. "I don't wish to intrude on your secrets, mon ami, but I could tell you just why you are going back to Rome in such a confounded hurry."