“I do not want wine to-night,” she said.  “It is good when one has a light heart, but my heart is as heavy as a stone.  What am I good for?  Kill me.  It will be better.  Then you will live.”

“I should have died without you long ago.  You saved my life.”

“To take it again!  To let you consume yourself, so that I may see the world!  What do I care for the world, if you are not well?  Let us go away quickly.”

“Next week, if you like.”

“No!  To-morrow!”

“Without waiting to hear Melba?”

“Yes—­to-morrow!”

“Or Sarah Bernhardt in Sardou’s new play?”

“To-morrow!  To-morrow morning, early!  What is anything compared with your getting well?”

“And your new summer costume that Doucet has not finished?  How about that?”

Marcello laughed gaily and emptied his glass.  But Regina rose and knelt down beside him, laying her hands on his.

“We must go to-morrow,” she said.  “You shall say where, for you know what countries are near Paris, and where there are hills, and trees, and waterfalls, and birds that sing, where the earth smells sweet when it rains, and it is quiet when the sun is high.  We will go there, but you know where it is, and how far.”

“I have no doubt Settimia knows,” laughed Marcello.  “She knows everything.”

But Regina’s face was grave, and she shook her head slowly.

“What is the use of laughing?” she asked.  “You cannot deceive me, you know you cannot!  I deceived myself and was blind, but my eyes are open now, and I can only see the truth.  Do you love me, Marcello?”

His eyes looked tired a moment ago, even when he laughed, but the light came into them now.  He breathed a little faster and bent forward to kiss her.  She could feel the rising pulse in his thin hands.  But she leaned back as she knelt, and pressed her lips together tightly.

“Not that,” she said, after they had both been motionless ten seconds.  “I don’t mean that!  Love is not all kisses.  There is more.  There are tears, but there is more too.  There is pain, there is doubting, there is jealousy, and more than that!  There is avarice also, for a woman who loves is a miser, counting her treasure when others sleep.  And she would kill any one who robbed her, and that is murder.  Yet there is more, there are all the mortal sins in love, and even then there is worse.  For there is this.  She will not count her own soul for him she loves, no, not if the saints in Paradise came down weeping and begging her to think of her salvation.  And that is a great sin, I suppose.”

Marcello looked at her, thinking that she was beautiful, and he said nothing.

“But perhaps a man cannot love like that,” she added presently.  “So what is the use of my asking you whether you love me?  You love Aurora too, I daresay!  Such as your man’s love is, and of its kind, you have enough for two!”