“Are you going to bed already?”
“Already! My God, it is half an hour after midnight! You are going mad, I think.”
“I think I am. Aurélie: tell me the truth honestly now: I cannot bear to discover it by the slow torture of watching you grow colder to me. Do you no longer love me?”
“Perhaps,” she said, indifferently. “I do not love you tonight, that is certain. You have been very tiresome.” And she left the room without looking at him. For some moments after her departure he remained motionless. Then he set his lips together; went to a bureau and took some money from it; put on his hat and overcoat; and took a sheet of paper from his desk. But after dipping a pen in the ink several times, he cast it aside without writing anything. As he did so, he saw on the mantelpiece a little brooch which Aurélie often wore at her throat. He took this up, and was about to put it into his pocket, when, giving way to a sudden impulse, he dashed it violently on the hearthstone. He then extinguished the light, and went out. When he had descended one stair, he heard a door above open, and a light foot fall on the landing above. He stopped and held his breath.
“Adrian, my dear, art thou there?”
“What is it?”
“When thou comest, bring me the little volume which lies on the piano. It is red; and my handkerchief is between the pages for a mark.”
He hesitated a moment. Then, saying, “Yes, my darling,” me he stole back into the drawing room; undid his preparations for flight; got the red book, and went upstairs, where he found his wife in bed, placidly unconscious of his recent proceedings, with the reading lamp casting a halo on her pillow.
It was Adrian’s habit to rise promptly when the servant knocked at his door at eight o’clock every morning. Aurélie, on the the contrary, was lazy, and often left her husband to breakfast by himself. On the morning after the concert he rose as usual, and made as much noise as possible in order to wake her. Not succeeding, he retired to his dressing room and, after a great splashing and rubbing, returned clad in a dressing gown.
“Aurélie.” A pause during which her regular breathing was audible. Then, more loudly “Aurélie.” She replied with a murmur. He added very loudly and distinctly, “It is twenty minutes past eight.”
She moved a little and uttered a strange sound, which he did not understand, but recognized as Polish. Then she said, drowsily in French, “Presently.”
“At once, if you please.” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Must I shake you?”
“No, no,” she rousing herself a little more. “Don’t shake me, I implore you.” Then, petulantly, “I will not be shaken. I am going to get up. Are there any letters?”
“I have not been downstairs yet.”
“Go and see.”
“You will be sure not to sleep again.”
“Yes, yes. I shall be down almost as soon as you. Bring me up the letters, if there are any.”
He returned to his dressing room; finished his toilet; and went downstairs. There were some letters. He looked at them, and went back to Aurélie. She was fast asleep.
“Oh, Anrelie! Aurélie! Really it is too bad. You are asleep again.”
“How you disturb me!” she said, opening her eyes, and sighing impatiently. “What hour is it?”
“You may well ask. It is twenty-five minutes to nine.”
“Is that all?”
“All! Come, Aurélie, there are three letters for you. Two are from Vienna.”
Aurélie sat up, awake and excited. “Quick,” she said. “Give them to me.”
“I left them downstairs.”
“Oh,” said Aurélie, disgusted. Adrian hurried from the room lest she should prevail upon him to bring up the letters. He occupied himself with the newspaper for the next fifteen minutes, at the end of which she appeared and addressed herself to her correspondence, leaving him to pour out tea for himself and for her. Nothing was said for some time. Then she exclaimed with emphasis, as though in contradiction of what she read:
“But it is certain that I will go.”
“Go where?” said Adrian, turning pale.
“To Vienna — to Prague — to Budapesth, my beloved Budapesth.”
“To Vienna!”
“They are going to give a Schumann concert in Vienna. They want me; and they shall have me. I have a specialty for the music of Schumann: no one in the world can play it as I can. And I long to see my Viennese friends. It is so stupid here.”
“But, Aurélie, I have my work to do. I cannot go abroad at this season of the year.”
“It is not necessary. I did not think of asking you to come. No. My mother will accompany me everywhere. She likes our old mode of life.”
“You mean, in short, to leave me,” he said, looking shocked.
“My poor Adrian,” she said, leaning over to caress him: “wilt thou be desolate without me? But fret not thyself: I will return with much money, and console thee. Music is my destiny, as painting is thine. We shall be parted but a little time.”
Adrian was pained, but could only look wistfully at her and say, “You seem to enjoy the prospect of leaving me, Aurélie.”
“I am tired of this life. I am forgotten in the world; and others take my place.”
“And will you be happier in Vienna than here?”
“Assuredly. Else wherefor should I desire to go? When I read in the journals of all the music in which I have no share, I almost die of impatience.”
“And I sometimes, when I am working alone in my studio, almost die of impatience to return to your side.”
“Bah! That is another reason for my going. It is not good for you to be so loving.”
“I fear that it too true, Aurélie. But will it be good for you to have no one near you who loves you?
“Oh, those who love me are everywhere. In Vienna there is a man — a student — six feet high, with fair hair, who gets a friend to make me deplorable verses which he pretends are his own. Heaven, how he loves me! At Leipzig there is an old professor, almost as foolish as thou, my Adrian. Ah, yes: I shall not want for lovers anywhere.”
“Aurélie, are you mad, or cruel, or merely simple, that you say these things to me?”
“Are you then jealous? Ha! ha! He is jealous of my fairhaired student and of my old professor. But fear nothing, my friend. For all these men my mother is a veritable dragon. They fear her more than they fear the devil, in whom, indeed, they do not believe.”
“If I cannot trust you, Aurélie, I cannot trust your mother.”
“You say well. And when you do not trust me, you shall never see me again. I was only mocking. But I must start the day after tomorrow. You must come with me to Victoria, and see that my luggage is right. I shall not know how to travel without my mother.”
“Until you are in her hands, I will not lose sight of you, my dear treasure,” said Adrian tenderly. “You will write often to me, will you not, Aurélie?”
“I cannot write — you know it, Adrian. Mamma shall write to you: she always has abundance to say. I must practise hard; and I cannot sit down and cramp my fingers with a pen. I will write occasionally — I am sure to want something.”
Adrian finished his breakfast in silence, glancing at her now and again with a mixture of rapture and despair.
“And so,” he said, when the meal was over, “I am to lose