force of his superior will,
and she yielded to it.

He leaned over her chair, and his voice grew softer. "Adrea, you are
very, very unjust to me," he said. "Do you wish to make me so unhappy,
I wonder? For a week I have been thinking of scarcely anything else
save our last parting, and now if I had not stopped you, almost by
force, you would have left me again in anger."

His tone had grown almost tender, and, as though unconsciously, his
hand had rested upon her gleaming coils of dark, braided hair. She
looked up at him, and in the firelight he could see that her eyes were
soft and dim.

"You have really thought of me?" she said in a low tone. "You have
really been unhappy on my account?"

"I have!" he admitted. "Very unhappy!"

Something in his tone--in the reluctance with which he made the
admission, angered her. She moved a little further away, and her voice
grew harder.

"Yes; you have been unhappy!" she said. "And why? It was because you
were ashamed to find yourself thinking of me; you, Paul de Vaux, a
citizen of the world and a man of culture, thinking of a poor dancing
girl with only her looks to recommend her! That was where the sting
lay! That was what reddened your cheek! You men! You are as selfish as
devils!"

She stamped her foot; her voice was shaking with passion. Paul stood
before her with a deep flush on his pale cheeks, silent, like a man
suddenly accused. Her words were not altogether true, but they were
winged with, at any rate, the semblance of truth.

She continued--a little more quietly, but with her tone and form still
vibrating.

"What do you fear? What is that you struggle against? I have seen
you when it has been your will to take me--into your arms, to hold my
hands. Then I have seen you conquer the desire, and you run away, as
though afraid of it. Why? Do you fear that I shall seek to compromise
you?--is not that the English word? Do you think that I want you to
marry me? Is it because you dare not, that you--you do not offer to
take my hand, even? Tell me now! Why is it?"

"For your own sake, Adrea!"

"For my own sake!" she repeated scornfully. "Do you believe it
yourself? Do you really think that it is true? I will tell you why
it is! It is because you have no thought, no imagination. You say to
yourself, she is not of my world. I cannot marry her."

There was a silence. A burning coal fell upon the hearth, and flamed
up; the glow reached Paul's face. He was very pale, a