him with scorn and dislike. I hope I may
be forgiven for acknowledging this now, Mademoiselle. And let me say one
thing more, that though I have no hope, though I am one of Love's
beggars, the greatest honour of my life will be that I have loved such
a woman!'

The door closed behind him. Isolde sat stupified at the result of her
stratagem, the stratagem by which she had intended to humble Valerie in
the most cruel way a woman can be humbled.

Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood
of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself,
sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's
horizon.

'Well,' said Isolde after a long pause, '"We love but while we may." I
wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday.'

Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.

'As for him, Isolde, you compelled him to say it! But he does not--love
me!' Her voice gathered strength. 'As for me, you shall know the whole
truth; you are right--I love him, for he is a most noble gentleman!'

CHAPTER XXII.

IN LOVE WITH HONOUR.

Revonde was drenched in a sudden and depressing thaw. From her crowned
ridges down to the swollen river rushing at her feet, she stood
shivering in a robe of clinging mist; yet the day was warm with the raw
deceptive closeness that chills to the bone and awakens the latent germs
of death.

From the Hotel du Chancelier the winter view over the bright, beautiful
city, glittering only yesterday in its winter bedizenment of frost and
snow, was changed. Streams of dirty water poured from the roofs, and in
the streets the miry snow sluiced slowly downhill or stuck on passing
boot-heels in treacherous pads.

A thaw is demoralising; its penetrative power strikes deeper than
physical _malaise_. With the average man or woman it damps the spirits,
unstrings the will, and slackens the mental and moral fibre until
resistance of any kind becomes an effort. M. Selpdorf was in the habit
of saying that the rope by which the world swings is made up of the
strands of the days rather than of the fathoms of the years. He held
that no detail was too insignificant to be used as a factor in the
conduct of affairs; thus he habitually took everyday trifles into
account, since small items are apt to add up handsomely in the final
figure of any calculation. A man who says 'No' to-day may be won to
consent to-morrow under altered conditions of weathe