say good
night to him."

"But he, he doesn't know that."

"Of course not; tenors never do. Well, that is just the way I have
lived, that is just what men have meant to me. They give the _replique_
to my moods, to my needs, and when I have no longer need of them, I go
off tranquilly. That is all there is to it. I take from them what I
want. Of course they will be around me, but they will be nothing to me.
They will be like managers, press-agents, actors. Don't you understand
that?"

"Yes, yes, I understand," he said without sincerity. Then he blurted
out, "I wish you had not said it, all the same."

"Why?"

"I cannot see it as you see it, and besides, you put a doubt in my mind
that I never wish to feel."

"What doubt?"

"Do I really have you, or only a mood of yours?"

"Ben!"

"I know. I know. No, I am not going to think such things. That would be
unworthy of what we have felt." He paused a moment, and when he spoke
again his voice was under control. "Madeleine, remember well what I say
to you now. I shall probably never again speak to you with such absolute
truth, or even acknowledge it to myself. I accept the necessity of
separation. I know all the sufferings it will bring, all the doubts, the
unreasoning jealousies. I am big enough in experience to understand what
you have just suggested to me, but as a man who loves you, Madeleine, I
will never understand it. I know that a dozen men may come into your
life, interest you intensely, even absorb you for a while, and that they
would still mean nothing to you the moment I come. Well, I am
different. A man is different. While you are away, I shall not see a
woman without resentment; I shall not think of any one but you, and if I
did, I would cease to love you."

"But why?"

"Because I cannot share anything of what belongs to you. That is my
nature. There is no use in pretending the contrary. Yours is different,
and I understand why it is so. I have listened to many confidences,
understood many lives that others would not understand. I have always
maintained that it is the natural thing for a human being to love many
times--even that there might he in the same heart a great, overpowering
love and a little one. I still believe it--with my mind. I know it is
so. These are the things we like to analyze in human nature together. I
know it is true, but it is not true for me. No, I would never understand
it in you. I know myself too well, I am jealous of everyth