be a disgrace to me--it would
look as if I had affronted you in some way, as if you were tired of me."

Deep in his soul he felt eager to make some chivalrous gesture. She was
going away because she had loved him! He should stay behind, sad and
resigned like a maid abandoned by a lover, and with the sense of having
harmed her on his conscience! _Ira de dios_! He, as a man, could not
stand by with folded arms accepting the abnegation of a woman, to stick
tied to his mother's apron-strings in boobified contentment. Even girls
ran away from home and parents sometimes, in the grip of a powerful
love; and he, a man, a man "in the public eye" also--was he to let a
beautiful girl like Leonora go away sorrowful and in tears, so that he
could keep the respect of a city that bored him and the affection of a
mother who had never really loved him? Besides, what sort of a love was
it that stepped aside in a cowardly, listless way like that, when a
woman was at stake, a woman for whom far richer, far more powerful men
than he, men bound to life by attractions that he had never dreamed of
in his countrified existence, had died or gone to ruin?...

"You shall not go," he repeated, with sullen obstinacy. "I won't give up
my happiness so easily. And if you insist on going, we will go
together."

Leonora rose to her feet all quivering. She had been expecting that; her
heart had told her it was coming. Flee together! Have her appear like an
adventuress, drawing Rafael on, tearing him from his mother's arms after
crazing him with love? Oh, no! Thanks! She had a conscience! She did
not care to burden it with the execration of a whole city. Rafael must
consider the matter calmly, face the situation bravely. She must go away
alone. Afterwards, later on, she would see. They might chance to meet
again; perhaps in Madrid, when the Cortes reassembled! He would be
there, and alone; she could find a place at the _Real_, singing for
nothing if that should prove necessary.

But Rafael writhed angrily at her resistance. He could not live without
her! A single night without seeing her would mean despair. He would end
as Macchia ended! He would shoot himself!

And he seemed to mean it. His eyes were fixed on the floor as if he were
staring at his own corpse, lying there on the pavement, motionless,
covered with blood, a revolver in its stiffened hand.

"Oh, no! How horrible! Rafael, my Rafael!" Leonora groaned, clasping him
around the neck, hangin