Speech fails her, she gasps for breath. "Let us go, let us go!" she pants.
"My Chuchu! My beloved wife!" cries Mr. von Harfink, and not honoring Felix and Linda with a word, he leads the Spaniard out of the room.
The carriage rolls away with the wedded pair. Scarcely has the door closed behind the Harfinks when Linda bursts into loud, happy laughter. Her husband's stiff manner, his way of ignoring her father, which, under other circumstances, would another time have irritated her from pure capriciousness, have this time chanced to delight her. "You are unique, Felix, wholly unique!" she cries to him. "You were so deliciously arrogant! But what is the matter with you? Are you ill? Tiens! Juanita is your great secret! Poor boy!" She taps him on the shoulder, she laughs yet. "What a disappointment, eh! But what is the matter? No, listen; it is humiliating for me that the meeting with this comedian has so robbed you of your self-control, Felix!"
His secret still has a charm for her, surrounds his poor bent form with a romantic light. Something startling, shockingly horrible, she seeks behind this, but not something dishonorable! With a teasing tenderness, which she has never shown him since their honeymoon, she strokes his cheeks, and begs, "Tell me what distresses you."
Then Felix's conscience torments him; he feels as if he would rather die than keep his secret longer. For a moment he almost counts upon mercy from this soft childish creature who has seated herself beside him on the arm of his old-fashioned chair.
"Linda," he begins, "when I married you I did not know--that you--suspected nothing of--of this matter. Your mother assured me that she had told you of my past----" he hesitates.
"Oh, my mother spared my youth, and only made the vaguest allusions!"
He draws a deep breath. "A terrible story is connected with this Spaniard,"--he hesitates--she looks closely and curiously at him; a sudden idea occurs to her: "You shot a friend in a duel on her account?" she cries, and then, as she sees him start but shake his head, she says softly, with indistinct articulation and hollow voice, "Or--or not in a duel--from jealousy?"
He lowers his head--he cannot speak--then slowly rising he totters out of the room. She remains alone--staring before her--her heart beats loudly--then she was right! All his enigmatical behavior is explained; she now even understands her fellow men, and strangely enough, she almost pardons him.
Felix, beside himself with jealousy, thirsting for revenge, plunging a knife into the breast of his friend--the scene has something dazzling, something which compels her sympathy. She pictures the scene to herself; the luxurious apartment of the dancer--the two men, both deathly pale--she has seen something similar in the Porte St. Martin theatre. A peculiar excitement overpowers her corrupted nature, thirsting for strong stimulants. She loves Felix!