ng her speech almost incoherent.

He set his arms akimbo, and surveyed her whimsically.

"My dear Cecile," quoth he, "if you will take no thought for my
convenience, I beg that, at least, you will take some for your good
name. Thousand devils woman! Will you have it said in Paris that
you were found locked in a room with me? What will your uncle--your
virtuous, prudish, incorruptible uncle--say when he learns of it? If he
does not demand a heavy price from you for so dishonouring him, he is
not the man I deem him. Now be sensible, child, and open that door
while there is yet time, and before anybody discovers us in this most
compromising situation."

He struck the tone most likely to win him obedience, and that he had
judged astutely her face showed him. In the place of the anger that had
distorted it there came now into that countenance a look of surprise
and fear. She saw herself baffled at every point. She had threatened him
with Duplay--the only man available--and he had shown her how futile it
must prove to summon him. And now she had locked herself in with him,
thinking to sit there until he should do her will, and he showed her the
danger to herself therein, which had escaped her notice.

There was a settle close behind her, and on to this she sank, and
bending her head she opened the floodgates of her passionate little
soul, and let the rage that had so long possessed her dissolve in tears.
At sight of that sudden change of front La Boulaye stamped his foot. He
appreciated the fact that she was about to fight him with weapons that
on a previous occasion--when, however, it is true, they were wielded by
another--had accomplished his undoing.

And for all that he steeled his heart, and evoked the memory of Suzanne
to strengthen him in his purpose: he approached her with a kindly
exterior. He sat him down beside her; he encompassed her waist with his
arm, and drawing her to him he set himself to soothe her as one soothes
a wilful child. Had he then recalled what her attitude had been towards
him in the past he had thought twice before adopting such a course. But
in his mind there was no sentiment that was not brotherly, and far from
his wishes was it to invest his action with any other than a fraternal
kindness.

But she, feeling that caressing arm about her, and fired by it in her
hapless passion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to
translate his attitude into one of a kindness far beyond his d