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ive emphasis, as if he were feeling his way. He was an opportunist with all the quickness of one who must live by his wits among others existing on the same uncertain fare. He saw her flush, and again he hesitated as a wayfarer may hesitate when he finds an easy road where he had expected to climb a hill. What was the meaning of it? he seemed to ask himself. "Charles does not interest you so much as he interests your sister?" he suggested. "He has never interested me much," she replied indifferently. She did not ask him to sit down. It would not have been etiquette in an age when women were by some odd misjudgment considered incapable of managing their own hearts. "Is that because he is in love, Mademoiselle?" inquired de Casimir with a guarded laugh. "Perhaps so." She did not look at him. De Casimir had not missed this time. His air of candid confidence had met with a quick response. He laughed again and moved towards the door. Mathilde stood motionless, and although she said no word, nor by any gesture bade him stay, he stopped on the threshold and turned again towards her. "It was my conscience," he said, looking at her over his shoulder, "that bade me go." Her face and her averted eyes asked why, but her straight lips were silent. "Because I cannot claim to be more interesting than Charles Darragon," he hazarded. "And you, Mademoiselle, confess that you have no tolerance for a man who is in love." "I have no tolerance for a man who is weakened by love. He should be strengthened and hardened by it." "To--?" "To do a man's work in the world," said Mathilde coldly. De Casimir was standing by the open door. He closed it with his foot. He was professedly a man alert for the chance of a moment, which he was content to grasp without pausing to look ahead. Should there be difficulties yet unperceived, these in turn might present an opportunity to be seized by the quick-witted. "Then you would admit, Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "that there may be good in a love that fights continually against ambition, and--does not prevail." Mathilde did not answer at once. There was an odd suggestion of antagonism in their attitude towards each other--not irreconcilable, the poets tell us, with love--but this is assuredly not the Love that comes from Heaven and will go back there to live through eternity. "Yes," said she at length. "Such is my love for you," he said, his quick instinct telling him
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