I could have screamed for her, as I sat there helplessly looking through
the open doors: and then, at last, I saw her, as if my wish had been a
call which had reached her ears over the music in the ballroom.
She had stopped dancing, and with her partner (Lord Robert, again)
entered the room which lay between our "den" and the ballroom, Probably
they would have gone on to the conservatory, which can be reached in
that way, but I cried her name as loudly as I could, and she heard. Only
a moment she paused--long enough to send Lord Robert away--and then she
came straight to me. He must have been furious: but I didn't care for
that.
I had been wanting her badly, but when I saw her, so bright and
beautiful, looking as if she were the joy of life made incarnate, I
should have liked to strike her hard, first on one cheek and then the
other, deepening the rose to crimson, and leaving an ugly red mark for
each finger.
"Have you a headache, dear?" she asked, in that velvet voice she keeps
for me--as if I were a thing only fit for pity and protection.
"It's my heart," said I. "It feels like a clock running down. Oh, I wish
I could die, and end it all! What's the good of me--to myself or
anyone?"
"Don't talk like that, my poor one," she said.
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