"No; you must listen—for the veil of romance is rent and we are face to face in the living world! Do you think a real man cares what title you wear, if you but wear his name? Countess that you are not—if you say you are not—but woman that you are, is there anything in Heaven or earth that can make love more than love? Veil your beautiful true eyes with romance, and answer me; look with clear, untroubled eyes upon throbbing, pulsating life; and answer me! Love is no more, no less, than love. I ask for yours; I gave you mine a week ago—in our first kiss."
Her face was white as a flower; the level beauty of her eyes set him trembling.
"Give me one chance," he breathed. "I am not mad enough to hope that the lightning struck us both at a single flash. Give me, in your charity, a chance—a little aid where I stand stunned, blinded, alone—you who can still see clearly!"
She did not stir or speak or cease to watch him from unwavering eyes; he leaned forward, drawing her inert hands together between his own; but she freed them, shivering.
"Will you not say one word to me?" he faltered.
"Three, monsieur." Her eyes closed, she covered them with her slender hands: "I—love—you."
Before the moon appeared she had taken leave of him, her hot, young face pressed to his, striving to say something for which she found no words. In tremulous silence she turned in his arms, unclasping his hands and yielding her own in fragrant adieu.
"Do you not know, oh, most wonderful of lovers—do you not know?" her eyes were saying, but her lips were motionless; she waited, reluctant, trembling. No, he could not understand—he did not care, and the knowledge of it suffused her very soul with a radiance that transfigured her.
So she left him, the promise of the moon silvering the trees. And he stood there on the wall, watching the lights break out in the windows of her house—stood there while his soul drifted above the world of moonlit shadow floating at his feet.