“Did I advise you to follow this way of life?” Erard asked, attempting to regain his usual imperturbability.
“Oh, no! You would do nothing so rash.”
“Have I given you nothing?”
“Why, yes, yourself. And, I suppose, I should be content with that. You have got out of life what you wanted, including your poor triumph over me. But if you ever come to have the highest fame you dream of, that will make no difference to me. You have trodden out every human feeling in your body. You have succeeded, but your success is rotten, rotten.”
Her voice sounded harshly in the soft air. A gentle breeze stirred the trees overhead and shook out the perfumes of the flowers. She struggled again with her incoherence.
“It has taken me a good while to understand. It has taken a thousand little things to teach me about you. But I have learned! Now let me tell you that your analysis is not always right. It would have been better not to wait—until the legal side had been straightened out, and we could marry and my fortune could be—attached. Perhaps, perhaps,—” She rose and followed him to the parapet. “Once perhaps you could have had me, to suck out my life and throw me away. Perhaps I would have followed you,—slave I already was,—your mistress and your adorer. But you—waited—until it was quite regular. And, meanwhile, you have made me see!”
“I don’t follow your ravings closely, but I gather that if I had let you—”
“Take care! Mind your manners!” she exclaimed more calmly, with a touch of her old haughtiness. “You can’t understand, and I shall not try to explain. It is a question of casuistry in a woman’s heart that isn’t in your field.”
“And can you explain where I have offended you?”
“Oh! I am of no importance, and it would take me a long time to make you see. But I will tell you a few things. You have pushed your way, you have taken what you want from the world, lived off it! You have abandoned your own people, you have sneered at your own land. And, what is worse than all, you have failed—to add one beautiful thing to this sore old world! You cannot, you cannot! I did not know why—now I do. There is no blood in your body, Mr. Simeon Erard,—no human, sinning, rich blood. Ah! you know too much, and your knowledge is—worthless.”