interlocutor, there
is in truth no gentler, meeker, more accommodating confidant than the
cornice. The cornice is quite an institution in the boudoir; what is it
but the confessional, _minus_ the priest?

Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay,
"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself and
love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her; nay,
more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew. At
last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to them
by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston.

"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary,
self-contained life?" she said quietly.

So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil
felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of
making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts in
check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express them,
and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of her
mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid soul.
The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it sprang
up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and ambitious
natures experience in the frequent crises when they are compelled
to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he broke the
silence to say in a faltering voice:

"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my
life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in
me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your
mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all who
ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden outpouring
of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought not----"

"Enough, monsieur," said Mme. de Beauseant; "we have both of us gone too
far. By giving you the sad reasons for a refusal which I am compelled to
give, I meant to soften it and not to elicit homage. Coquetry only suits
a happy woman. Believe me, we must remain strangers to each other. At a
later day you will know that ties which must inevitably be broken ought
not to be formed at all."

She sighed lightly, and her brows contracted, but almost immediately
grew clear again.

"How painful it is for a woman to be powerless to follow the man she
loves through all the phases of his