ugh me. A voice told me, 'She is here!' I looked round, and saw the
countess hidden in the shadow at the back of her box in the first
tier. My look did not waver; my eyes saw her at once with incredible
clearness; my soul hovered about her life like an insect above its
flower. How had my senses received this warning? There is something
in these inward tremors that shallow people find astonishing, but the
phenomena of our inner consciousness are produced as simple as those of
external vision; so I was not surprised, but much vexed. My studies of
our mental faculties, so little understood, helped me at any rate to
find in my own excitement some living proofs of my theories. There
was something exceedingly odd in this combination of lover and man of
science, of downright idolatry of a woman with the love of knowledge.
The causes of the lover's despair were highly interesting to the man of
science; and the exultant lover, on the other hand, put science far away
from him in his joy. Foedora saw me, and grew grave: I annoyed her.
I went to her box during the first interval, and finding her alone,
I stayed there. Although we had not spoken of love, I foresaw an
explanation. I had not told her my secret, still there was a kind of
understanding between us. She used to tell me her plans for amusement,
and on the previous evening had asked with friendly eagerness if I meant
to call the next day. After any witticism of hers, she would give me
an inquiring glance, as if she had sought to please me alone by it. She
would soothe me if I was vexed; and if she pouted, I had in some sort
a right to ask an explanation. Before she would pardon any blunder,
she would keep me a suppliant for long. All these things that we so
relished, were so many lovers' quarrels. What arch grace she threw into
it all! and what happiness it was to me!

"But now we stood before each other as strangers, with the close
relation between us both suspended. The countess was glacial: a
presentiment of trouble filled me.

"'Will you come home with me?' she said, when the play was over.

"There had been a sudden change in the weather, and sleet was falling
in showers as we went out. Foedora's carriage was unable to reach the
doorway of the theatre. At the sight of a well-dressed woman about to
cross the street, a commissionaire held an umbrella above us, and stood
waiting at the carriage-door for his tip. I would have given ten years
of life just then for a couple