"I seem to be in a sort of dream," he murmured, putting his hands to his temples. "Surely all the past, all our pleasant intercourse, is not to be forgotten! You will not throw me away like this?"
"Where's the use of my playing this symphony, if you don't begin?"
"Georgina!—let me call you so for the first, perhaps for the last time—dear Georgina, you cannot forget the past! You cannot mean what you have just said."
"How unpleasant you are making things to-night!" she said, with a laugh. "I shall begin to think you have followed the example of those wretched little juniors, and taken plentifully of wine."
"Perhaps I have; perhaps it is owing to that that I have courage freely to talk to you now. Georgina, you know how I have loved you; you know that for years and years my life has been as one long blissful dream, filled with the image of you."
She stole a glance at him from her blue eyes; a smile hovered on her parted lips. He bent his head until his brown wavy curls mingled with her lighter hair.
"Georgina, you know—you know that you can be life or death to me."
He could not speak with consecutive smoothness; his heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds, his whole frame thrilled, his fingers were trembling.
"Tell me that it is not all to be forgotten!"