Love for a Year.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 120, 17 November 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

Love for a Year.

Scene 1. — New York. A pleasant sit-ting-room in Alicia's home. Present: Alicia and Raimund. Alicia (with dignity): "No Raimund. I can't listen to you." Raimund (pleadingly) : " But why, Alicia— why?" Alicia: "For a hundred reasons. I need not name them, since my answer is final." Raimund (desperately) : "It can't be final. I won't believe you. I love you too much. Oh, do you think I can give you up for one refusal?" That is not my way of loving. What can I say to make you understand?" Alicia (gently) : " You have made me understand. I appreciate most truly the depth and warmth of your feeling ; but, my dear boy, it is altogether impossible — wildly impossible — this dream of yours." Radmund : "Itis in nowise impossible. That's the wrong word." Alicia (firmly) : " Raimund, listen to me. Counting by time, I am four years your senior." Raimund (promptly) : " I don't care." Alicia: "And counting by experience — " Raimund (interrupting) : " Experi* ence? If you come to that your experience can't rank for a moment beside mine. I am twenty-five, but I have been struggling with the world since I was sixteen. You have been busy with your books and music, going jout into society now and then. What can you learn of life, of its real significance, in the pleasant drawing-rooms of your select little circle of friends?" Alicia (with a retrospective smile) : "Enough for disillusionment — enough to see the folly of such a marriage as you suggest." Raimund: "Then you have learned very little. I have been out battling with fate — struggling against worse odds than you can dream of, but I was working my way to you." \ Alicia (smiling) : " And I was growing old in. the meantime. Come, now, be sensible." Raimund : "I am sensible ; therefore I refuse to accept your decision. I repeat again, I love you, and I want you for my own. Oh, Alicia!" — (his voice breaks a little) — " if you don't quite hate me — if there is no one you care for more —don't you see that I can't give you up? I must hope." Alicia (softly) : " There is no one else, and I am very, very fond of you. I see so much in you Uhat is _, noble and manly — " Raimund (quickly) : " Don't — don't praise me. You never did before, and it makes me feel afraid. I know quite well I am not worthy to tie your shoe, but I worship you so. There is nothing 'in God's world I would not do to prove my devotion." Alicia (after a pause) : " I wonder if you would do one thing I might ask of you — make one little sacrifice for both our sakes?" Raimund (fervently) : " Yes, anything — anything in my power, Alicia, except to leave you, and that is not in my power now." Alicia: "But that, dear, is what I would ask you to do. No, let me speak. I do believe, that you are true and loyal and full of love — " Raimund : " Oh, Alicia !" Alicia : '" Hush, now ! And it is for this reason that I wish you to go away. Yesterday, when you spoke of your partner trying to persuade you take a business trip — " Raimund: "But I told you I would not go, because it would separate me from you." Alicia: "I thought it was what you ought to do. He wanted you to stay a year, you said — " Raimund : " Yes ; but I won't." Alicia : " And take charge of the firm in San Francisco." (Gravely.) "Suppose I demand of you to make this test of your love— to stay away a year?" Raimund {impetuously) : " I can't, that's all." Alicia: 'If you love me— if you are sure your love will last^-you can. Now, see, dear. I will say this much— that if you go away for a year among new interests and new people, getting the new experiences that are sure to come to you, and then return to me with the same

unchanged regard, I might be able to Bee — but I won't promise — only — perhaps — " llaimund (passionately) : ".Oh, yes, you will promise — you will let me hope for a promise. That is what you mean, my best and dearest. Then I'll go. It's hard, it's heartbreaking ; but I'll leave you for a year, Alicia. And when I come back you'll marry me ; say you will." Alicia (giving him her hand) : " Don't ask me for any pledge. Come to me and see."