out all over him.

"What is the matter with you?" cried the fair Diane, noticing a
hesitation which a woman never forgives. Your truly adroit lover will
hasten to agree with any fancy that Woman may take into her head, and
suggest reasons for doing otherwise, while leaving her free exercise
of her right to change her mind, her intentions, and sentiments
generally as often as she pleases. Victurnien was angry for the first
time, angry with the wrath of a weak man of poetic temperament; it was
a storm of rain and lightning flashes, but no thunder followed. The
angel on whose faith he had risked more than his life, the honor of
his house, was very roughly handled.

"So," said she, "we have come to this after eighteen months of
tenderness! You are unkind, very unkind. Go away!--I do not want to
see you again. I thought that you loved me. You do not."

"/I do not love you/?" repeated he, thunderstruck by the reproach.

"No, monsieur."

"And yet----" he cried. "Ah! if you but knew what I have just done for
your sake!"

"And how have you done so much for me, monsieur? As if a man ought not
to do anything for a woman that has done so much for him."

"You are not worthy to know it!" Victurnien cried in a passion of
anger.

"Oh!"

After that sublime, "Oh!" Diane bowed her head on her hand and sat,
still, cold, and implacable as angels naturally may be expected to do,
seeing that they share none of the passions of humanity. At the sight
of the woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his
danger. Had he not just that moment wronged the most angelic creature
on earth? He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he
kissed her feet, he pleaded, he wept. Two whole hours the unhappy
young man spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the same cold
face, while the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as
soon as they fell lest the unworthy lover should try to wipe them
away. The Duchess was acting a great agony, one of those hours which
stamp the woman who passes through them as something august and
sacred.

Two more hours went by. By this time the Count had gained possession
of Diane's hand; it felt cold and spiritless. The beautiful hand, with
all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was
nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him.
As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed out of his frame, he had
ceased to think. He would not