you'll not be changed;
I was thinking that I might be."

He withdrew the arm that was round her, and, raising himself upon his
elbow, he looked at her.

"You've told me more about yourself in that single phrase than if you
had been talking an hour."

"Dearest Owen, let me kiss you."

It seemed to them wonderful that they should be permitted to kiss each
other so eagerly, and it sometimes was a still more intense rapture to
lie in each other's arms and talk to each other.

The dawn surprised them still talking, and it seemed to them as if
nothing had been said. He was explaining his plans for her life. They
were, he thought, going to live abroad for five, six, or seven years.
Then Evelyn would go to London, to sing, preceded by an extraordinary
reputation. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris.

"We cannot stop at this hotel; we must have a house. I have heard of a
charming hotel in the Rue Balzac."

"In the Rue Balzac! Is there a street called after him? Is it on account
of the name you want me to live there?"

"No; I don't think so, but perhaps the name had something to do with
it--one never knows. But I always liked the street."

"Which of his books is it like?"

"_Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan_"

They laughed and kissed each other.

"At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Friedland; the tram passes
there, and it will take you straight to Madame Savelli's."

The sparrows had begun to shrill in the courtyard, and their eyes ached
with sleep.

"Five or six years--you'll be at the height of your fame. They will pass
only too quickly," he added.

He was thinking what his age would be then. "And when they have passed,
it will seem like a dream."

"Like a dream," she repeated, and she laid her face on the pillow where
his had lain.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As she lay between sleeping and waking, she strove to grasp the
haunting, fugitive idea, but shadows of sleep fell, and in her dream
there appeared two Tristans, a fair and a dark. When the shadows were
lifted and she thought with an awakening brain, she smiled at the
absurdity, and, striving to get close to her idea, to grip it about its
very loins, she asked herself how much of her own life she could express
in the part, for she always acted one side of her character. Her pious
girlhood found expression in the Elizabeth, and what she termed the
other side of her character she was going to put on the stage in the
ch