Herbert sat as if upon the rack,--he could not speak,--his voice denied him utterance.
"No man has seemed to me worthy of a glance since I saw him first. Bound by no vow, no duty, no right, I have still been true to him. Since loving him, I have first known a sense of what the moralist would call decorous reserve. For a woman who for the first time truly loves is in the first bloom of youth, whether she be sixteen or thirty. I was a wife before I was a woman, and the spring, that I had never known before, began to breathe around me beneath the magic influence of that man,--the maiden blossom of my life, crushed in the germ, budded anew. Oh, what would I not have been to him! I, with the experience of ripened womanhood and the first love of a girl! And scorned! I, for whose smile monarchs have contended, scorned by a simple German philosopher! Oh, it stings, it stings!"
And she hid her face again.
Herbert timidly approached her and touched her shoulder lightly with a trembling hand. "Would that I could console you!"
She shrank from his touch as if a reptile had stung her.
"What consolation can you give me, except the relief that I have in pouring out my soul before you?"
She moved away, and again strode restlessly to and fro like a caged lioness. "Fool, fool that I was! How could I suppose that the interest he took in my husband's case was due to my attractions? It was inspired by a hateful disease,--for this he came hither, and I thought he came for my sake! Oh, fie, fie! I stayed for love of him by that terrible sick-bed, and he had eyes only for the sick man,--he never even saw me standing beside him. Is he man, or devil?"
"Oh, no," Herbert interrupted her, with malice, "he is only--a German philosopher."
"And once, when I sank fainting in that room, what an arm supported me, strong as iron, and yet tender as the arm of a mother! He carried me like a child from the apartment. I held my breath, that nothing might arouse me from that enchanting dream. He laid me on a couch, saying, with icy composure, 'Allow me, madam, to call your maid. I must return to the patient.' My cheeks burned with mortification; for one moment I hated him, but when the door had closed behind him I revered him as a saint. I could have knelt at his feet, and, clasping his knees, bedewed his hands with penitential tears. But I restrained myself. I suddenly knew that this pure spirit could love nothing that he did not respect,--that I must first win that before I could hope for his love. I determined to begin a new life, to break with all the past. For no sacrifice would be too great to win the love of this man, and I sowed renunciation that I might reap delight. Fool that I was! I reap nothing but the reward of virtue!"
She laughed bitterly, and a violent burst of tears quenched the fire in her brain. She threw herself down upon the lion's skin, unconsciously representing the Ariadne.