unworthy of the passion she had inspired in
his friend.

"Upon my soul," he thought, "I would a hundred times rather have
Reine Gobillot for a sweetheart. I must take a trip in that direction
tomorrow."

When they separated for the night, Gerfaut, bored by his evening and
wounded by his reception from Clemence, which, he thought, surpassed
anything he could have expected of her capricious disposition, addressed
to the young woman a profound bow and a look which said:

"I am here in spite of you; I shall stay here in spite of you; you shall
love me in spite of yourself."

Madame de Bergenheim replied by a glance none the less expressive, in
which a lover the most prone to conceit could read:

"Do as you like; I have as much indifference for your love as disdain
for your presumption."

This was the last shot in this preliminary skirmish.

CHAPTER IX. GERFAUT, THE WIZARD

There are some women who, like the heroic Cure Merino, need but one
hour's sleep. A nervous, irritable, subtle organization gives them a
power for waking, without apparent fatigue, refused to most men. And
yet, when a strong emotion causes its corrosive waters to filtrate into
the veins of these impressionable beings, it trickles there drop by
drop, until it has hollowed out in the very depths of their hearts a
lake full of trouble and storms. Then, in the silence of night and the
calm of solitude, insomnia makes the rosy cheeks grow pale and dark
rings encircle the most sparkling eyes. It is in vain for the burning
forehead to seek the cool pillow; the pillow grows warm without the
forehead cooling. In vain the mind hunts for commonplace ideas, as a
sort of intellectual poppy-leaves that may lead to a quiet night's rest;
a persistent thought still returns, chasing away all others, as an eagle
disperses a flock of timid birds in order to remain sole master of its
prey. If one tries to repeat the accustomed prayer, and invoke the aid
of the Virgin, or the good angel who watches at the foot of young girls'
beds, in order to keep away the charms of the tempter, the prayer is
only on the lips, the Virgin is deaf, the angel sleeps! The breath of
passion against which one struggles runs through every fibre of the
heart, like a storm over the chords of an Tolian harp, and extorts from
it those magic melodies to which a poor, troubled, and frightened woman
listens with remorse and despair; but to which she listens, and with
which at last she is in