nd Coconnas, suiting the action to the word, raised the delicate hand
to La Mole's lips, and kept them for a moment respectfully united,
without the hand seeking to withdraw itself from the gentle pressure.

Marguerite had not ceased to smile, but Madame de Nevers did not smile
at all; she was still trembling at the unexpected appearance of the two
gentlemen. She was conscious that her awkwardness was increased by all
the fever of a growing jealousy, for it seemed to her that Coconnas
ought not thus to forget her affairs for those of others.

La Mole saw her eyebrows contracted, detected the flashing threat of her
eyes, and in spite of the intoxicating fever to which his delight was
insensibly urging him to succumb he realized the danger which his friend
was running and perceived what he should try to do to rescue him.

So rising and leaving Marguerite's hand in Coconnas's, he grasped the
Duchesse de Nevers's, and bending his knee he said:

"O loveliest--O most adorable of women--I speak of living women, and not
of shades!" and he turned a look and a smile to Marguerite; "allow a
soul released from its mortal envelope to repair the absence of a body
fully absorbed by material friendship. Monsieur de Coconnas, whom you
see, is only a man--a man of bold and hardy frame, of flesh handsome to
gaze upon perchance, but perishable, like all flesh. _Omnis caro fenum._
Although this gentleman keeps on from morning to night pouring into my
ears the most touching litanies about you, though you have seen him
distribute as heavy blows as were ever seen in wide France--this
champion, so full of eloquence in presence of a spirit, dares not
address a woman. That is why he has addressed the shade of the queen,
charging me to speak to your lovely body, and to tell you that he lays
at your feet his soul and heart; that he entreats from your divine eyes
a look in pity, from your rosy fingers a beckoning sign, and from your
musical and heavenly voice those words which men can never forget; if
not, he has supplicated another thing, and that is, in case he should
not soften you, you will run my sword--which is a real blade, for swords
have no shadows except in the sunshine--run my sword right through his
body for the second time, for he can live no longer if you do not
authorize him to live exclusively for you." All the verve and comical
exaggeration which Coconnas had put into his speech found their
counterpart in the tenderness, the intox