... who are part of your destiny already, as you of theirs ... it seems to me uncanny. And you are no more the Cecilia I used to love--no! You resemble closely one who was very dear to me, and yet you are not at all the same as she. No, you are not the woman that was my wife for years. I could feel it the moment you entered the place.... The connection between the young girl who sank into my arms one evening seven years ago and the woman who has just returned from abroad to dwell for a brief while in this house seems quite mysterious. For seven years I have been living with another woman--with a quiet, kindly woman--with a sort of angel perhaps, who has now disappeared. She who came to-day has a voice that I have never heard, a look that I am foreign to, a beauty that is strange to me--a beauty not surpassing what the other had, except in being more cruel possibly--and yet a beauty that should confer much greater happiness, I think. CECILIA Don't look at me like that!... Don't talk to me like that!... That's not the way to talk to a friend! Don't forget I am no more the one I used to be. When you talk to me like that, Amadeus, it is as if here, too, I should be fanned by those cajoling breaths that nowadays so often touch me like caresses--breaths that make life seem incredibly light, and that make you feel ready for so much that formerly would have appeared incomprehensible. AMADEUS If you could guess, Cecilia, how your words hurt me and excite me at the same time! CECILIA (_brusquely_) You must not talk like that, Amadeus. I don't want it. Be sensible, for my sake as well as your own. Good-night. AMADEUS Are you going, Cecilia? CECILIA Yes. And bear in mind that we are friends and want to remain such. AMADEUS Bear in mind that we have always wanted to be _honest_. And it is not honest--either for you or me--to say that we stand face to face as friends in this moment.... Cecilia--the _one_ thing I can feel at this moment is that you are beautiful ... beautiful as you have never been before! CECILIA Amadeus, Amadeus, are you forgetting all that has happened? AMADEUS I could forget it--and so could you. CECILIA Oh, I remember--I remember! (_She wants to leave_) AMADEUS Stay, Cecilia, stay! The day after to-morrow I shall be gone--stay! CECILIA Please don't speak to me like that! I am no longer what I used to be--no longer proud, or calm, or good. Who knows how little might be needed to make me the victim of a certain unscrupulous seducer! AMADEUS Cecilia! CECILIA Have you so many friends to lose? One is all I have.--Good-night. (_She tries to get away_) AMADEUS (_seizing her by the hand_) Cecilia, we have long ago bidden each other good-by as man and wife--but we have also made up our minds to take life lightly, to be free, and to lay hold of every happiness that comes within our reach. Should we be mad enough, or cowardly enough, to shrink from the highest happiness ever offered us...? CECILIA