"No, no, there is more." And we sat a long time in silence.
At last he proposed that we should go out; and we passed in the street,
where the shadows had begun to stretch themselves.
"I don't know what you mean by her being an actress," he said, as we
turned homeward.
"I suppose not. Neither should I have known, if any one had said that to
me."
"You are thinking about the mother," said Stanmer. "Why are you always
bringing _her_ in?"
"My dear boy, the analogy is so great it forces itself upon me."
He stopped and stood looking at me with his modest, perplexed young face.
I thought he was going to exclaim--"The analogy be hanged!"--but he said
after a moment--
"Well, what does it prove?"
"I can't say it proves anything; but it suggests a great many things."
"Be so good as to mention a few," he said, as we walked on.
"You are not sure of her yourself," I began.
"Never mind that--go on with your analogy."
"That's a part of it. You _are_ very much in love with her."
"That's a part of it too, I suppose?"
"Yes, as I have told you before. You are in love with her, and yet you
can't make her out; that's just where I was with regard to Madame de
Salvi."
"And she too was an enchantress, an actress, an artist, and all the rest
of it?"
"She was the most perfect coquette I ever knew, and the most dangerous,
because the most finished.
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