er. They understood one another--in that close embrace, in
the unalloyed and sacred fervor of that one kiss without an
afterthought--the first kiss by which two souls take possession of each
other.

"Ah, I will not leave you any more," said Pauline, falling back in her
chair. "I do not know how I come to be so bold!" she added, blushing.

"Bold, my Pauline? Do not fear it. It is love, love true and deep and
everlasting like my own, is it not?"

"Speak!" she cried. "Go on speaking, so long your lips have been dumb
for me."

"Then you have loved me all along?"

"Loved you? _Mon Dieu_! How often I have wept here, setting your room
straight, and grieving for your poverty and my own. I would have sold
myself to the evil one to spare you one vexation! You are MY Raphael
to-day, really my own Raphael, with that handsome head of yours, and
your heart is mine too; yes, that above all, your heart--O wealth
inexhaustible! Well, where was I?" she went on after a pause. "Oh yes!
We have three, four, or five millions, I believe. If I were poor, I
should perhaps desire to bear your name, to be acknowledged as your
wife; but as it is, I would give up the whole world for you, I would
be your servant still, now and always. Why, Raphael, if I give you my
fortune, my heart, myself to-day, I do no more than I did that day when
I put a certain five-franc piece in the drawer there," and she pointed
to the table. "Oh, how your exultation hurt me then!"

"Oh, why are you rich?" Raphael cried; "why is there no vanity in you? I
can do nothing for you."

He wrung his hands in despair and happiness and love.

"When you are the Marquise de Valentin, I know that the title and the
fortune for thee, heavenly soul, will not be worth----"

"One hair of your head," she cried.

"I have millions too. But what is wealth to either of us now? There is
my life--ah, that I can offer, take it."

"Your love, Raphael, your love is all the world to me. Are your thoughts
of me? I am the happiest of the happy!"

"Can any one overhear us?" asked Raphael.

"Nobody," she replied, and a mischievous gesture escaped her.

"Come, then!" cried Valentin, holding out his arms.

She sprang upon his knees and clasped her arms about his neck.

"Kiss me!" she cried, "after all the pain you have given me; to blot out
the memory of the grief that your joys have caused me; and for the sake
of the nights that I spent in painting hand-screens----"

"Those hand-scree