Barnes, soaring beyond all previous heights of exaltation, ranged dizzily between "front" and "back" at the Grand Opera House that evening. He was supposed to remain "out front" until the curtain went up on the second act. But the presence of the Countess in Miss Thackeray's barren, sordid little dressing-room rendered it exceedingly difficult for him to remain in any fixed spot for more than five minutes at a stretch. He was in the "wings" with her, whispering in her delighted ear; in the dressing-room, listening to her soft words of encouragement to the excited leading-lady; on the narrow stairs leading up to the stage, assisting her to mount them,-- and not in the least minding the narrowness; out in front for a jiffy, and then back again; and all the time he was dreading the moment when he would awake and find it all a dream.
There was an annoying fly in the ointment, however. Her languorous surrender to love, her physical confession of defeat at the hands of that inexorable power, her sweet submission to the conquering arms of the besieger, left nothing to be desired; and yet there was something that stood between him and utter happiness: her resolute refusal to bind herself to any promise for the future.
"I love you," she had said simply. "I want more than anything else in all the world to be your wife. But I cannot promise now. I must have time to think, time to--"
"Why should you require more time than I?" he persisted. "Have we not shown that there is nothing left for either of us but to make the other happy? What is time to us? Why make wanton waste of it?"
"I know that I cannot find happiness except with you," she replied. "No matter what happens to me, I shall always love you, I shall never forget the joy of THIS. But--" She shook her head sadly.
"Would you go back to your people and marry--" he swallowed hard and went on--"marry some one you could never love, not even respect, with the memory of--"
"Stop! I shall never marry a man I do not love. Oh, please be patient, be good to me. Give me a little time. Can you not see that you are asking me to alter destiny, to upset the teachings and traditions of ages, and all in one little minute of weakness?"
"We cannot alter destiny," he said stubbornly. "We may upset tradition, but what does that amount to? We have but one life to live. I think our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren will be quite as well pleased with their ancestors as their royal contemporaries will be with theirs a hundred years from now."