I smiled at him once more, saying: “Whether I believe or not, matters little. What matters is that you certainly do!”
He turned a trifle pale, and felt nervously for his cigarette-case. “Give over!” he cried out roughly, on a sudden, and again came towards me.
I rose, quivering all over with excitement, but managed to say, calmly enough:
“I should not like to part from you too tragically. And since I have had enough of love in general, and enough of your person especially, I am afraid I must ask you to have the goodness to withdraw now. Let us shake hands on parting. Go.”
He came forwards, with knit gloomy brows, and looks which betrayed the storm that raged within him. I stepped backwards. He stood for an instant struggling with himself, and I fully expected he would rush at me.
But his breeding prevailed. He made a courtly bow, kissed my hand and retired.
I stood where I was, with head bent forward.... That page, with his dear tawny eye-lashes—with his soft sad eyes—with his lips, of the odour of faded roses—he that once had been mine!
“All the same,” I whispered to myself, “the thing is done at last!”
To-day I feel I have crossed the Rubicon, and am standing on the farther shore, not very sure whether things are better with me now. And yet, I should not wish to go back again.
I have this morning received several nosegays.