human
But still it is all a puzzle to me, Madam, I began.
gpt
I do not understand.
human
Well, when you stood at the door, my little shoe in your pocket, when you kissed my hand that first night, when you told me what you would do did you love a woman--when I saw something new in life I had not seen--why, then, in the devil's resolution that no woman in the world should be happy if I could help it, I slipped in the body of the slipper a little line or so that I had written when you did not see, when I was in the other room. 'Twas that took the place of Van Zandt's message, after all! Monsieur, it was fate. Van Zandt's letter, without plan, fell out on my table. Your note, sent by plan, remained in the shoe!
gpt
And what did it say? Tell me at once.
human
Very little. Yet enough fora woman who loved and who expected. Only this: '_In spite of that other woman, come to me still. Who can teach yon love of woman as can I? Helena._' I think it was some such words as those.
gpt
You did not see that note? she demanded.
human
After all, at first I meant it only for _you_. I wanted to see you again. I did not want to lose you. Ah, God! I was so lonely, so--so--I can not say. But you did not find my message?
gpt
No, I said,
human
I did not look in the slipper. I do not think my friend did.
gpt
But she--that girl, did!
human
How could she have believed?
gpt
Ah, grand! I reverence your faith. But she is a woman! She loved you and expected you that hour, I say. Thus comes the shock of finding you untrue, of finding you at least a common man, after all. She is a woman. 'Tis the same fight, all the centuries, after all! Well, I did that.
human
You ruined the lives of two, neither of whom had ever harmed you, Madam.
gpt
What is it to the tree which consumes another tree--the flower which devours its neighbor? Was it not life?
human
You had never seen Elisabeth.
gpt
Not until the next morning, no. Then I thought still on what you had said. I envied her--I say, I coveted the happiness of you both. What had the world ever given me? What had I done--what had I been--what could I ever be? Your messenger came back with the slipper. The note was in the shoe untouched. Your messenger had not found it, either. See, I _did_ mean it for you alone. But now since sudden thought came to me. I tucked it back and sent your drunken friend away with it for her--where I knew it would be found! I did not know what would be the result. I was only desperate over what life had done to me. I wanted to get _out_--out into a wider and brighter world.
human
Ah, Madam, and was so mean a key as this to open that world for you? Now we all three wander, outside that world.
gpt
No, it opened no new world for me, she said.
human
I was not meant for that. But at least, I only acted as I have been treated all my life. I knew no better then.
gpt
I had not thought any one capable of that,