all. Both
therefore were enduring the consequences of the singular situation.
At that supreme moment the myriad thoughts in his mind might have
been reduced to the formula--"Submit to be mine----" words which seem
horribly selfish to a woman for whom they awaken no memories, recall no
ideas. Something nevertheless he must say. And what was more, though her
barbed shafts had set his blood tingling, though the short phrases that
she discharged at him one by one were very keen and sharp and cold, he
must control himself lest he should lose all by an outbreak of anger.

"Mme la Duchesse, I am in despair that God should have invented no way
for a woman to confirm the gift of her heart save by adding the gift of
her person. The high value which you yourself put upon the gift teaches
me that I cannot attach less importance to it. If you have given me
your inmost self and your whole heart, as you tell me, what can the rest
matter? And besides, if my happiness means so painful a sacrifice, let
us say no more about it. But you must pardon a man of spirit if he feels
humiliated at being taken for a spaniel."

The tone in which the last remark was uttered might perhaps have
frightened another woman; but when the wearer of a petticoat has allowed
herself to be addressed as a Divinity, and thereby set herself above all
other mortals, no power on earth can be so haughty.

"M. le Marquis, I am in despair that God should not have invented
some nobler way for a man to confirm the gift of his heart than by the
manifestation of prodigiously vulgar desires. We become bond-slaves
when we give ourselves body and soul, but a man is bound to nothing by
accepting the gift. Who will assure me that love will last? The very
love that I might show for you at every moment, the better to keep your
love, might serve you as a reason for deserting me. I have no wish to be
a second edition of Mme de Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that
keeps you beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of
an unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring
devotion, to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, others
for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really read the riddle of
man's heart."

There was a pause. When she spoke again it was in a different tone.

"After all, my friend, you cannot prevent a woman from trembling at the
question, 'Will this love last always?' Hard though my words may be,
the dread o