“Do, and I will love you,” I heard her say.
Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips! Oh, the horrible fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor! Which was worse I know not—the spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it. At that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord.
The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying herself prodigiously. Our three personalities appeared to vibrate rudely one against the other. I was conscious that Judith read me, that Pasquale read Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between them. The waiter offered me partridge. Pasquale quickly turned from Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour.
“I think we ought to drink Faust’s health, don’t you?”
I started. Had I not myself traced the analogy?
“Faust?” queried Judith at a loss.
“Our friend Faust opposite me,” said Pasquale, raising his champagne glass. “Hasn’t he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm into the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now—has he told you of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?”
Judith smiled. “Have you been Mephistopheles?”
“What is Mephistopheles?” asked Carlotta.
“The devil,” said Pasquale, “who made Sir Marcus young again.”