," he said. "I am not so vain as
to think any merits of mine would influence you. But my devotion, my
admiration of you, the very force of my passion, should move you. Be you
ever so set against me--and I do not think you are--you should not be
so strong to resist the shock of feeling. I do not know the cause, but
I will find it out; and when I do, I shall remove it or be myself
removed." He touched my arm with his fingers. "When I touch you like
that," he said, "summer riots in my veins. I will not think that this
which rouses me so is but power upon one side, and effect upon the
other. Something in you called me to you, something in me will wake you
yet. Mon Dieu, I could wait a score of years for my touch to thrill you
as yours does me! And I will--I will."

"You think it suits your honour to force my affections?" I asked; for I
dared not say all I wished.

"What is there in this reflecting on my honour?" he answered. "At
Versailles, believe me, they would say I strive here for a canonizing.
No, no; think me so gallant that I follow you to serve you, to convince
you that the way I go is the way your hopes will lie. Honour? To fetch
you to the point where you and I should start together on the Appian
Way, I would traffic with that, even, and say I did so, and would do so
a thousand times, if in the end it put your hand in mine. Who, who can
give you what I offer, can offer? See: I have given myself to a hundred
women in my time--but what of me? That which was a candle in a wind,
and the light went out. There was no depth, no life, in that; only the
shadow of a man was there those hundred times. But here, now, the whole
man plunges into this sea, and he will reach the lighthouse on the
shore, or be broken on the reefs. Look in my eyes, and see the furnace
there, and tell me if you think that fire is for cool corners in the
gardens at Neuilly or for the Hills of--" He suddenly broke off, and a
singular smile followed. "There, there," he said, "I have said enough.
It came to me all at once how droll my speech would sound to our people
at Versailles. It is an elaborate irony that the occasional virtues
of certain men turn and mock them. That is the penalty of being
inconsistent. Be saint or imp; it is the only way. But this imp that
mocks me relieves you of reply. Yet I have spoken truth, and again and
again I will tell it you, till you believe according to my gospel."

How glad I was that he himself lightened the situa