“From that speech, and other signs, I infer that Felix is about to leave me to your tender mercies, and fall to work upon his new book; since it seems he could not resist making poetry when he should have been making love. Are you not jealous of the rival who steals him from you, even before the honeymoon has set?” asked Helwyze, touching the little manuscript before him.
“Not if she makes him great, and I can make him happy,” answered Gladys, with an air of perfect content and trust.
“I warn you that the Muse is a jealous mistress, and will often rob you of him. Are you ready to give him up, and resign yourself to more prosaic companionship?”
“Why need I give him up? He says I do not disturb him when he writes. He allowed me to sit beside him while he made these lovely songs, and watch them grow. He even let me help with a word sometimes, and I copied the verses fairly, that he might see how beautiful they were. Did I not, Felix?”
Gladys spoke with such innocent pride, and looked up in her husband’s face so gratefully, that he could not but thank her with a caress, as he said, laughing,—
“Ah, that was only play. I’ve had my holiday, and now I must work at a task in which no one can help me. Come and see the den where I shut myself up when the divine frenzy seizes me. Mr. Helwyze is jailer, and only lets me out when I have done my stint.”
Full of some pleasurable excitement, Canaris led his wife across the room, threw open a door, and bade her look in. Like a curious child, she peeped, but saw only a small, bare _cabinet de travail_.
“No room, you see, even for a little thing like you. None dare enter here without my keeper’s leave. Remember that, else you may fare like Bluebeard’s Fatima.” Canaris spoke gayly, and turned a key in the door with a warning click, as he glanced over his shoulder at Helwyze. Gladys did not see the look, but something in his words seemed to disturb her.
“I do not like this place, it is close and dark. I think I shall not want to come, even if you _are_ here;” and, waiting for no reply, she stepped out from the chill of the unused room, as if glad to escape.
“Mysterious intuition! she felt that we had a skeleton in here, though it is such a little one,” whispered Canaris, with an uneasy laugh.