y of its Cagliostro? Never, on
any account."

"I have, however, made up my mind to follow you wherever you go," said
Jenkins resolutely.

There was an instant of silence. Paul asked himself if it was worthy
of him to listen to this conversation which was full of terrible
revelations. But in spite of his fatigue an invincible curiosity nailed
him to the spot. It seemed to him that the enigma which had so long been
perplexing and troubling him was going to be solved at last, to show the
woman sad or perverse, concealed by the fashionable artist. He remained
there, still holding his breath, needlessly, however; for the two,
believing themselves to be alone in the hotel, let their passions and
their voices rise without constraint.

"Well, what do you want of me?"

"I want you."

"Jenkins!"

"Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me to say such words before you,
but other men than I have said them, and nearer still."

"And if it were so, wretch! If I have not been able to protect myself
from disgust and boredom, if I have lost my pride, is it for you to say
a word? As if you were not the cause of it; as if you had not forever
saddened and darkened my life for me!"

And these burning and rapid words revealed to the terrified Paul de
Gery the horrible meaning of this apparently affectionate guardianship,
against which the mind, the thought, the dreams of the young girl had
had to struggle so long, and which had left her the incurable sadness of
precocious regret, the heart-break of a life hardly begun.

"I loved you! I love you still! Passion excuses everything," answered
Jenkins in a hollow voice.

"Love me, then, if that amuses you. As for me, I hate you not only for
the wrong you have done me, all the beliefs and energy you have killed
in me, but because you represent what is most execrable, most hideous
under the sun--hypocrisy and lies. This society masquerade, this heap of
falsity, of grimaces, of cowardly and unclean conventions have sickened
me to such an extent, that I am running away exiling myself so as to see
them no longer; rather than them I would have the prison, the sewer, the
streets. And yet it is your deceit, O sublime Jenkins, which horrifies
me most. You have mingled our French hypocrisy, all smiles and
politeness, with your large English shakes of the hand, with your
cordial and demonstrative loyalty. They have all been caught by it. They
said, 'The good Jenkins; the worthy, honest Jenkins.' B