"He will tell you," said Rosa, equally cautious.

A silence followed.

"Do you think I upset him--that night?" she asked.

"You wish me to be frank?"

"If I had thought you would not be frank I would not have asked you.

Do you imagine it is my habit to go about putting awkward questions

like that?"

"I think you did upset him very much."

"You think I was wrong?"

"I do."

"Perhaps you are right," she admitted.

I had been bold. A desire took me to be still bolder. She was in the

carriage with me. She was not older than I. And were she Rosetta Rosa,

or a mere miss taken at hazard out of a drawing-room, she was feminine

and I was masculine. In short--Well, I have fits of rashness

sometimes.

"You say he is depressed," I addressed her firmly. "And I will

venture to inform you that I am not in the least surprised."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "And why?"

"After what you said to him that night in the dressing-room. If I had

been in Alresca's place I know that I should be depressed, and very

much depressed, too."

"You mean--" she faltered.

"Yes," I said, "I mean that."

I thought I had gone pretty far, and my heart was beating. I could not

justly have protested had she stopped the carriage and deposited me on

the pavement by the railings of Green Park. But her character was

angelic. She accepted my treatment of her with the most astounding

meekness.

"You mean," she said, "that he is in love with me, and I chose just

that night to--refuse him."

I nodded.

"That is emotional cause enough, isn't it, to account for any

mysterious depression that any man is ever likely to have?"

"You are mistaken," she said softly. "You don't know Alresca. You

don't know his strength of mind. I can assure you that it is

something more than unreturned love that is destroying him."

"Destroying him?"

"Yes, destroying him. Alresca is capable of killing a futile passion.

His soul is too far removed from his body, and even from his mind, to

be seriously influenced by the mistakes and misfortunes of his mind

and body. Do you understand me?"

"I think so."

"What is the matter with Alresca is something in his most secret

soul."

"And you can form no idea of what it is?"

She made no reply.

"Doctors certainly can't cure such diseases as that," I said.

"They can try," said Rosetta Rosa.

"You wish me to try?" I faced her.

She inclined her head.

"Then I will," I said with sudden passionateness, forgetting even that

I was not Alresca's doctor.

The carriage stopped. In the space of less than a quarter of an hour,

so it seemed to me, we had grown almost intimate--she and I.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024