, everywhere, and
never have I found in it even a semblance of its magnificent ideal."

"Did you seek that ideal?"

"Yes."

The word was said with such perfect ease and freedom that the young man
made a gesture of surprise and looked at Marie fixedly, as if he had
suddenly changed his opinion on her character and real position.

"Mademoiselle," he said with ill-concealed devotion, "are you maid or
wife, angel or devil?"

"All," she replied, laughing. "Isn't there something diabolic and also
angelic in a young girl who has never loved, does not love, and perhaps
will never love?"

"Do you think yourself happy thus?" he asked with a free and easy tone
and manner, as though already he felt less respect for her.

"Oh, happy, no," she replied. "When I think that I am alone, hampered
by social conventions that make me deceitful, I envy the privileges of
a man. But when I also reflect on the means which nature has bestowed
on us women to catch and entangle you men in the invisible meshes of a
power which you cannot resist, then the part assigned to me in the world
is not displeasing to me. And then again, suddenly, it does seem very
petty, and I feel that I should despise a man who allowed himself to be
duped by such vulgar seductions. No sooner do I perceive our power and
like it, than I know it to be horrible and I abhor it. Sometimes I feel
within me that longing towards devotion which makes my sex so nobly
beautiful; and then I feel a desire, which consumes me, for dominion
and power. Perhaps it is the natural struggle of the good and the evil
principle in which all creatures live here below. Angel or devil!
you have expressed it. Ah! to-day is not the first time that I have
recognized my double nature. But we women understand better than you
men can do our own shortcomings. We have an instinct which shows us
a perfection in all things to which, nevertheless, we fail to attain.
But," she added, sighing as she glanced at the sky; "that which enhances
us in your eyes is--"

"Is what?" he said.

"--that we are all struggling, more or less," she answered, "against a
thwarted destiny."

"Mademoiselle, why should we part to-night?"

"Ah!" she replied, smiling at the passionate look which he gave her,
"let us get into the carriage; the open air does not agree with us."

Marie turned abruptly; the young man followed her, and pressed her
arm with little respect, but in a manner that expressed his imperious
admiratio