still
bound by a foolish prejudice. Do you really think that I could compare
a carriage and diamonds with your love? Do you think that my real
happiness lies in the trifles that mean so much when one has nothing
to love, but which become trifling indeed when one has? You will pay my
debts, realize your estate, and then keep me? How long will that last?
Two or three months, and then it will be too late to live the life I
propose, for then you will have to take everything from me, and that
is what a man of honour can not do; while now you have eight or ten
thousand francs a year, on which we should be able to live. I will sell
the rest of what I do not want, and with this alone I will make two
thousand francs a year. We will take a nice little flat in which we can
both live. In the summer we will go into the country, not to a house
like this, but to a house just big enough for two people. You are
independent, I am free, we are young; in heaven's name, Armand, do not
drive me back into the life I had to lead once!"

I could not answer. Tears of gratitude and love filled my eyes, and I
flung myself into Marguerite's arms.

"I wanted," she continued, "to arrange everything without telling you,
pay all my debts, and take a new flat. In October we should have been
back in Paris, and all would have come out; but since Prudence has
told you all, you will have to agree beforehand, instead of agreeing
afterward. Do you love me enough for that?"

It was impossible to resist such devotion. I kissed her hands ardently,
and said:

"I will do whatever you wish."

It was agreed that we should do as she had planned. Thereupon, she went
wild with delight; danced, sang, amused herself with calling up pictures
of her new flat in all its simplicity, and began to consult me as to
its position and arrangement. I saw how happy and proud she was of this
resolution, which seemed as if it would bring us into closer and closer
relationship, and I resolved to do my own share. In an instant I decided
the whole course of my life. I put my affairs in order, and made over
to Marguerite the income which had come to me from my mother, and which
seemed little enough in return for the sacrifice which I was accepting.
There remained the five thousand francs a year from my father; and,
whatever happened, I had always enough to live on. I did not tell
Marguerite what I had done, certain as I was that she would refuse the
gift. This income came from a mor