Rafael thought he had offended her, and was sorry for his violent words.
She must pardon him; he was beside himself, exasperated beyond bounds at her strange resistance. Leonora! Leonora! Why persist in spoiling a perfectly beautiful thing? He was not wholly a matter of indifference in her eyes. She did not dislike him. Otherwise she would not have let him be a friend and have permitted his frequent visits. Love?... Of course she did not love him—poor unhappy wretch that he was, incapable of inspiring passion in a woman like her. But let her just accept him. He would teach her to love him in time, win her by the sheer beauty of his own tenderness and worship. His love alone, alas, was great enough for both of them and for all the famous lovers in history put together! He would be her slave; a carpet for her to tread underfoot; a dog, always at her feet, his eyes burning with the fire of eternal fidelity! She would finally learn to be fond of him, if not out of passion, at least out of gratitude and pity!
And as he spoke, he brought his face close to Leonora's, looking for his own image in the depths of her green eyes; and he pressed her arm in a fever of passion.
"Careful, Rafael.... That hurts! Let go, of me."
And as if suddenly sensing a danger in the full of a sweet dream, she shuddered and pulled herself free with a nervous violence.
Then, quite recovered from the intoxication into which she had been led by Rafael's passionate appeal, she began to speak calmly, composedly.
No; what he asked was impossible. Her fate was ordained; she did not want love any more.... Friendship had carried them a bit astray. It was her fault, but she would find a way to remedy that. If she had known him years before—perhaps! She might have learned to love him. He was more worthy of being loved than many of the men she had accepted. But he had come too late. Now she was content with just living. Besides, what a horror! Imagine a "grand passion" in a petty environment such as they were in, a tiny world of gossip-mongers and evil tongues! Imagine having to hide like a criminal to express a noble emotion! No, when she loved, she loved in the open, with the sublime immodesty of the masterpiece that scandalizes bumpkins with its naked beauty! How impossible it would be, finding herself nibbled at constantly by gossiping fools, quite beneath her contempt. She would feel the scorn and the indignation of a whole town about her. They would accuse her of leading an innocent boy astray, alienating him from his own mother. "No, Rafael; a thousand times no; I have a little conscience left! I'm not the irresponsible siren I used to be."
"But what about me?" cried the youth, seizing her arm again with a boyish petulance. "You think of yourself and of other people, but never of me. What am I going to do all along with my suffering?"
"Oh, you? Why ... you will forget," said Leonora gravely. "I have just realized this very moment that it is impossible for me to stay here any longer. We two must separate. I will leave before Spring is over; I'll go ... I don't know where, back to the world at any rate, take up my singing again, where I'll not find men of just your kind. Time, and my absence, will attend to the curing of you."
Leonora winced before the flash of savage desire that gleamed in Rafael's eyes. On her face she felt the ardent breath of lips that were seeking her own, and she heard him murmur with a stifled roar of passion: