Shall I?"

Then all at once she burst out laughing, and laughed for a long while.
With astonishment and a feeling of offence I gazed at her. Her laughter
was too like the derisive merriment which she had so often indulged in
of late--merriment which had broken forth always at the time of my most
passionate explanations. At length she ceased, and frowned at me from
under her eyebrows.

"I am NOT going to take your money," she said contemptuously.

"Why not?" I cried. "Why not, Polina?"

"Because I am not in the habit of receiving money for nothing."

"But I am offering it to you as a FRIEND in the same way I would offer
you my very life."

Upon this she threw me a long, questioning glance, as though she were
seeking to probe me to the depths.

"You are giving too much for me," she remarked with a smile. "The
beloved of De Griers is not worth fifty thousand francs."

"Oh Polina, how can you speak so?" I exclaimed reproachfully. "Am I De
Griers?"

"You?" she cried with her eyes suddenly flashing. "Why, I HATE you!
Yes, yes, I HATE you! I love you no more than I do De Griers."

Then she buried her face in her hands, and relapsed into hysterics. I
darted to her side. Somehow I had an intuition of something having
happened to her which had nothing to do with myself. She was like a
person temporarily insane.

"Buy me, would you, would you? Would you buy me for fifty thousand
francs as De Griers did?" she gasped between her convulsive sobs.

I clasped her in my arms, kissed her hands and feet, and fell upon my
knees before her.

Presently the hysterical fit passed away, and, laying her hands upon my
shoulders, she gazed for a while into my face, as though trying to read
it--something I said to her, but it was clear that she did not hear it.
Her face looked so dark and despondent that I began to fear for her
reason. At length she drew me towards herself--a trustful smile playing
over her features; and then, as suddenly, she pushed me away again as
she eyed me dimly.

Finally she threw herself upon me in an embrace.

"You love me?" she said. "DO you?--you who were willing even to quarrel
with the Baron at my bidding?"

Then she laughed--laughed as though something dear, but laughable, had
recurred to her memory. Yes, she laughed and wept at the same time.
What was I to do? I was like a man in a fever. I remember that she
began to say something to me--though WHAT I do not know, since she
spoke with a feverish