rankness returned once more--a candor of which she was
always ready to make herself the first victim--and in a low,
confidential, affectionate tone she continued:

"Besides, Rafaelito, you haven't had a good look at me. Why, I'm almost
an old woman!... Oh, I know it, I know it. You don't have to tell me.
You and I are of the same age; but you are a man; and I'm a woman. And
the way I've lived has added considerably to my years. You are still on
the very threshold of life. I've been knocking about the world since I
was sixteen, from one theatre to another. And my accursed disposition,
my mania for concealing nothing, for refusing to lie, has helped make me
worse than I really am. I have many enemies in this world who are just
gloating, I am sure, because I have suddenly disappeared. You can't
advance a step on the stage without rousing the jealousy of someone; and
that kind of jealousy is the most bloodthirsty of human passions. Can
you imagine what my kind colleagues say about me? That I've gotten along
as a woman of the _demimonde_ rather than as an artist--that I'm a
_cocotte_, using my voice and the stage for soliciting, as it were."

"Damn the liars!" cried Rafael hotly. "I'd like to have someone say that
in my hearing."

"Bah! Don't be a child. Liars, yes, but what they say has a grain of
truth in it. I have been something of the sort, really; though the blame
had not been wholly mine ... I've done crazy foolish things--giving a
loose rein to my whims, for the fun of the thing. Sometimes it would be
wealth, magnificence, luxury; then again bravery; then again just plain,
ordinary, good looks! And I would be off the moment the excitement, the
novelty, was gone, without a thought for the desperation of my lovers at
finding their dreams shattered. And from all this wild career of
mine--it has taken in a good part of Europe--I have come to one
conclusion: either that what the poets call love is a lie, a pleasant
lie, if you wish; or else that I was not born to love, that I am immune;
for as I go back over my exciting and variegated past, I have to
recognize that in my life love has not amounted to this!"

And she gave a sharp snap with her pink fingers.

"I am telling you everything, you see," she continued. "During your long
absence I thought of you often. Somehow I want you to know me
thoroughly, once and for all. In that way perhaps we can get along
together better. I can understand now why it is a peasant woman