“I know you don’t. I am speaking simply for myself.”
He was again silent, and Helen hesitated to break in upon his reverie. He seemed for the moment to be far away from her, and she felt an intangible barrier between them.
“I could not make any one understand.” Armstrong was speaking more to himself than to her. “Ever since I left Florence years ago I have felt something pulling me back, and ever since I have been here I have been under influences which I can explain no more than I can resist. It must be this, if anything, that you feel.”
“I think I understand,” Helen hastened to reassure him. “Sometimes when I have been playing something on the piano I have the strangest sensation come over me. I seem to lose my own individuality and to be merged into another’s. I feel impelled to play on, and an unspeakable dread comes over me lest some one should try to stop me. Is it not something like that which you feel?”
“Yes,” replied Armstrong, “only a thousand times stronger than any one could put in words.”
“I know exactly what you mean—and there is nothing for which you need blame yourself. You warned me before we left Boston that you had left here a second personality. I know that you confidently expected your own enthusiasm to excite my interest when once in the atmosphere. I wish that it had, dear, but I fear I am hopelessly modern.”
Armstrong looked at his wife intently, yet he gave no evidence that he had heard her words.
“I have started on a great task at the library, Helen. The spirit of work is on me, and I feel that I have a chance to prove myself one of that glorious company. I may find myself unequal to the opportunity, but if we stay here in Florence I cannot keep away from it. If my absence from you makes you unhappy I must separate myself from these associations.”
“No, indeed,” cried Helen. “I would not have you stop your work for worlds. Even though I am unable to appreciate it, you know how interested I am in anything which adds to your happiness—and I am so proud of you, dear! That was one reason why I was glad that Inez could spend a little time with us. She, at least, can help you.”
“She can indeed,” replied Armstrong, frankly, “and she has already. I have never seen a girl with such natural intellectual gifts. Her arguments are so logical, her reasoning so clear, that I find even her disagreements most entertaining. What a pity she is not a man!”