th--"Dorian, you should have understood. But
you understand now, don't you?"

"Understand what?" he asked, angrily.

"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall never
act well again."

He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill you
shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I
was bored."

She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An
ecstasy of happiness dominated her.

"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one
reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought
that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other.
The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine
also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me
seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew
nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my beautiful
love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality
really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the
hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had
always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the
Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the
orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had
to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say.
You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a
reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! my
love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You
are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the
puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not understand how
it was that everything had gone from me. I thought that I was going to
be wonderful. I found that I could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my
soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them
hissing, and I smiled. What could they know of love such as ours? Take
me away, Dorian--take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I
hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot
mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand
now what it signifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation
for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that."

He flung himse