"It wasn't rude," she said.
"You must have thought it so then."
"I—I didn't know what to think—exactly."
"Well, now you know. It was an astonishing resemblance that made me stare at you."
Her nether lip trembled.
"I didn't know my mother," she said.
"No," said Stainton, "but you are very like her." He waited a moment and then, as her eyes were lowered, went on: "That was a boyish love of mine for her. It was really not love at all—only the rough sketch for what might have been, but never was, a finished picture. But I went away, when your mother repulsed me, with the likeness of her in my heart. I wanted love; I worked to be fit to win love and to keep it once I had won it. Then I came back and saw in that box at the opera the living original of the dream-woman that had all those years been with me."
He came another step nearer.
"I arranged to meet you," he said, "and I knew at last I was really in love. I want to be to you what your mother would not let me be to her. It is you whom I love, not a memory. I love you. I was young then and didn't know. Now I am still young—I have kept myself young—but I know." He bent forward and paused. Then, "Muriel," he said.
The girl drew back. She put her hand before her eyes. The violets rolled to the floor.