"Well!" he rejoined--"You say 'Amadis' as though it hurt you! What now?" "Do you mean," she said, faintly--"by--what--you--say,--do you mean--that we are--to part?" The strained agony in her eyes compelled him to turn his own away. He got up from the settee and left her where she stood. "We must part sooner or later," he answered, lightly--"surely you know that?" "Surely I know that!" she repeated, with a bewildered look,--then running to him, she caught his arm--"Amadis! Amadis! You don't mean it!--say you don't mean it!--You can't mean it, if you love me! ... Oh, my dearest!--if you love me! ..." She stopped, half choked by a throbbing ache in her throat,--and tottered against him as though about to fall. Alarmed at this he caught her round the waist to support her. "Of course I love you!" he said, hurriedly--"When you are good and reasonable!--not when you behave like this! If I DON'T love you, it will be quite your own fault--" "My own fault?" she murmured, sobbingly--"My own fault? Amadis! What have I done?" "What have you done? It's what you are doing that matters! Giving way to temper and making me uncomfortable! Do you call that 'love'?" She dropped her hand from his arm and drew herself away from him. She was trembling from head to foot. "Please--please don't misunderstand me!" she stammered, like a frightened child--"I--I have no temper! I--I--feel nothing--I only want to please you--to know what you wish--" She broke off--her eyes, lifted to his, had a strange, wild stare, but he was too absorbed in his own particular and personal difficulty to notice this. He went on, speaking rapidly-- "If you want to please me you will first of all be perfectly normal," he said--"Make up your mind to be calm and good-natured. I cannot stand an emotional woman all tantrums and tears. I like good sense and good manners. You ought to have both, with all the books you have read--" She gave a sudden low laugh, empty of mirth. "Books!" she echoed--and raising her arms above her head she let them drop again at her sides with a gesture of utter abandonment. "Ah yes! Books! Books by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!" Her hair was ruffled and fell about her face,--her cheeks had flamed into a feverish red. The tragic beauty of her expression annoyed him. "Your hair is coming down," he said, with a coldly critical smile--"You look like a Bacchante!" She paid no attention to this remark. She was apparently talking to herself. "Books!" she said again--"Such sweet love-letters and poems by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!" He grew impatient. "You're a silly child!" he said--"Are you going to listen to me or not?" She gazed at him with an almost awful directness. "I am listening!" she answered. "Well, don't be melodramatic while you listen!" he retorted--"Be normal!" She was silent, still gazing fixedly at him.