I should want to get her back to the theatre,
where she was succeeding so well. She liked her work; she was interested
in it; and you know she was becoming quite a favorite with the public.
Come, Miss Girond," he said, "you needn't be angry with me; that won't
do any good. I see now I have been very thoughtless and careless; I
ought not to have given her that loving-cup; I ought not to have given
her any of those trinkets, I suppose. But it never occurred to me at the
time; I fancied she would be pleased at the moment, that was all."
"And you did not reflect, then," said Estelle, regarding him for a
second, "what it was that may have brought Nina to England at the
beginning?--no?--what made her wish to play at the New Theatre? Ah, a
man is so blind!"
"Brought Nina to England?" he repeated, rather bewildered.
"But these are only my conjectures," she said, quickly. "No, I have no
secrets to tell. I ask myself what brings Nina to England, to the New
Theatre, to the companionship with her old friend--I ask myself that,
and I see. But you--perhaps it is not your fault that you are blind; you
have so many ladies seeking for favor you have no time to think of this
one or that, or you are grown indifferent, it may be.
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