If she had been ten years older, and an experienced coquette, she would have said to herself, "_This man hates the stage because he is jealous of its hold on my life_," and she would have rejoiced over the inadvertent confession. But now these hesitating words of his seemed to have awakened some quick responsive thrill in her nature, for she suddenly said, with an earnestness that was not at all assumed: "Sometimes I have thought of that--it is so strange to hear my own doubts repeated. If I could choose my own life--yes, I would rather live that out than merely imagining the experiences of others. But what is one to do? You look around, and take the world as it is. Can anything be more trivial and disappointing? When you are Juliet in the balcony, or Rosalind in the forest, then you have some better feeling with you, if it is only for an hour or so." "Yes," said he; "and you go on indulging in those doses of fictitious sentiment until--But I am afraid the night air is too cold for you. Shall we go back?" She could not fail to notice the trace of bitterness, and subsequent coldness, with which he spoke. She knew that he must have been thinking deeply over this matter, and that it was no ordinary thing that caused him to speak with so much feeling. But, of course, when he proposed that they should return to the marquee, she consented. He could not expect her to stand there and defend her whole manner of life. Much less could he expect her to give up her profession merely because he had exercised his wits in getting up some fantastic theory about it. And she began to think that he had no right to talk to her in this bitter fashion. When they had got half way back to the tent, he paused for a moment. "I am going to ask a favor of you," he said, in a low voice. "I have spent a pleasant time in England, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for letting me become one of your friends. To-morrow morning I am going back home. I should like you to give me that flower--as some little token of remembrance." The small fingers did not tremble at all as she took the flower from her dress. She presented it to him with a charming smile and without a word. What was the giving of a flower? There was a cart-load of roses in the tent. But this flower she had worn next her heart. CHAPTER XII. WHITE HEATHER.