impertinences, or sign my demission and cease to labour for the cause at
least in conjunction with Alvan. And how other wise? He is the life of
it, and I am doomed to uselessness.'

Tresten nodded a protesting assent.

'Not quite so bad,' he said, with the encouraging smile which could
persuade a friend to put away bilious visions. 'Of the two, if you two
are divisible, we could better dispense with him. She'll slip him, she's
an eel. I have seen eels twine on a prong of the fork that prods them;
but she's an actress, a slippery one through and through, with no real
embrace in her, not even a common muscular contraction. Of every camp! as
you say. She was not worth carrying off. I consented to try it to quiet
him. He sets no bounds to his own devotion to friendship, and we must
take pattern by him. It's a mad love.'

'A Titan's love!' the baroness exclaimed, groaning. 'The woman!--no
matter how or at what cost! I can admire that primal barbarism of a great
man's passion, which counts for nothing the stains and accidents fraught
with extinction for it to meaner men. It reads ill, it sounds badly, but
there is grand stuff in it. See the royalty of the man, for whom no
degradation of the woman can be, so long as it brings her to him!
He--that great he--covers all. He burns her to ashes, and takes the
flame--the pure spirit of her--to himself. Were men like him!--they would
have less to pardon. We must, as I have ever said, be morally on alpine
elevations to comprehend Alvan; he is Mont Blanc above his fellows. Do
not ask him to be considerate of her. She has planted him in a storm, and
the bigger the mountain, the more savage, monstrous, cruel--yes, but she
blew up the tourmente! That girl is the author of his madness. It is the
snake's nature of the girl which distracts him; she is in his blood. Had
she come to me, I would have helped her to cure him; or had you succeeded
in carrying her off, I would have stood by their union; or were she a
different creature, and not the shifty thing she is, I could desire him
to win her. A peasant girl, a workman's daughter, a tradesman's, a
professional singer, actress, artist--I would have given my hand to one
of these in good faith, thankful to her! As it is, I have acted in
obedience to his wishes, without idle remonstrances--I know him too well;
and with as much cordiality as I could put into an evil service. She will
drag him down, down, Tresten!'

'They are not joined yet,' s