t be glad to see me? Would you not have felt a something
stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman, feel a thrill in my
inmost self at the mere sound of your voice. Often in a ballroom a
longing has come upon me to spring to your side and put my arms about
your neck."

"Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to spring to
your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all my life long, I
suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared with you!"

"Ah!" he cried despairingly, "you have no love for me----"

"Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable."

"Then I have still to find favour in your sight?"

"Oh, I should think so. Come," added she, "with a little imperious air,
go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you; I wish always to find
favour in your eyes."

Never woman better understood the art of putting charm into insolence,
and does not the charm double the effect? is it not enough to infuriate
the coolest of men? There was a sort of untrammeled freedom about Mme
de Langeais; a something in her eyes, her voice, her attitude, which is
never seen in a woman who loves when she stands face to face with him at
the mere sight of whom her heart must needs begin to beat. The Marquis
de Ronquerolles' counsels had cured Armand of sheepishness; and further,
there came to his aid that rapid power of intuition which passion will
develop at moments in the least wise among mortals, while a great man
at such a time possesses it to the full. He guessed the terrible truth
revealed by the Duchess's nonchalance, and his heart swelled with the
storm like a lake rising in flood.

"If you told me the truth yesterday, be mine, dear Antoinette," he
cried; "you shall----"

"In the first place," said she composedly, thrusting him back as he
came nearer--"in the first place, you are not to compromise me. My woman
might overhear you. Respect me, I beg of you. Your familiarity is all
very well in my boudoir in an evening; here it is quite different.
Besides, what may your 'you shall' mean? 'You shall.' No one as yet
has ever used that word to me. It is quite ridiculous, it seems to me,
absolutely ridiculous.

"Will you surrender nothing to me on this point?"

"Oh! do you call a woman's right to dispose of herself a 'point?' A
capital point indeed; you will permit me to be entirely my own mistress
on that 'point.'"

"And how if, believing in your promises to me, I should absolutely
requ