' Then the morning comes, and she is gone away; what can I
do? Twice I go to your apartment--"
"Oh, I am not blaming you at all, Miss Girond," he said, at once and
quite gently. "If anybody is to blame, I suppose it's myself, for I
appear to have quarrelled with Nina without knowing it. Of course you
understood that that packet you left yesterday contained the various
little presents I have given her from time to time--worthless bits of
things--but all the same her sending them back shows that Nina has some
ground of offence. I'm very sorry; if I could only get hold of her I
would try to reason with her; but she was always sensitive and proud and
impulsive like that. And then to run away because of some fancied
slight--"
Estelle interrupted him with a little gesture of impatience, almost of
despair.
"Ah, you are wrong, you are wrong," she said. "It is far more serious
than that. It is no little quarrel. It is a pain that stabs to the
heart--that kills. You will see Nina never again to make up a little
quarrel. She has taken her grief away with her. I myself, when I first
saw her troubled at the theatre, I also made a mistake--I thought she
was hysteric--"
"At the theatre?" said he, with some sudden recalling of his own
surmise.
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