to be with her to-night, would surely be sinning against me.
TO-DAY I bought all the papers. They are full of praise. In one of them they even speak of 'quite astonishing improvement.' Only one of the whole lot is not complimentary. They say 'that he was dull and impudent as usual,' and this time also drowned in affectation. I wonder what idiot writes for this paper. I should love to see him hacked into pieces and dished up as a 'terrible accident' in his own paper. But what does it matter what one absurd person writes when everybody else is enthusiastic. The play was done again last night, alas! I could not be in the theatre, but I was outside when the box-office opened — there was a big queue, and again after the performance—I stood in the hall, wearing my veil of course, and let people crush past me. I heard his name mentioned a hundred times, and I went home, saying it over to myself a thousand times before I fell asleep.
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What have all the others been to him? Why have none of them been able to inspire him? If he has cared as much for any of them as he cares for me, why was it left for me to light the torch of his success?
I ask myself all these questions, but I dare not say aloud the answer, which sings in my soul like a hymn of victory.
