my heart at your feet. Do
you understand me now? To tell you that I love you--no, that is not
enough, it is not love, it is adoration," he said. "I have never known
what it meant before. However fair women might be, I have passed them
by; my heart has never spoken. But now! Since the first moment I saw
you, Bice----"

The girl rose up; she became a little alarmed. Emotion was strange to
her, and she shrank from it. "I have given," she said, "to nobody
permission to call me by my name."

"But you will give it to me! to your true lover," he cried. "No one can
admire and adore you as much as I do. It was from the first moment.
Bice, oh, listen! I have nothing to offer you but love, the devotion of
a life. What could a king give more? A true man cannot think of anything
else when he is speaking to the woman he loves. Nothing else is worthy
to offer you. Bice, I love you! I love you! Have you nothing, nothing in
return to say to me?"

All his self-importance and intellectual superiority had abandoned him.
He was so much agitated that he saw her but dimly through the mists of
excitement and passion. He stretched out his hands appealing to her. He
might have been on his knees for anything he knew. It seemed incredible
to him that his strong passion should have no return.

"Have you nothing, nothing to say to me?" he cried.

Bice had been frightened, but she had regained her composure. She looked
on at this strange exhibition of feeling with the wondering calm of
extreme youth. She was touched a little, but more surprised than
anything else. She said, with a slight tremor, "I think it must be all a
mistake. One is never so serious--oh, never so serious! It is not
something of--gravity like that. Did not you know? I am intended to make
a marriage--to marry well, very well--what you call a great marriage. It
is for that I am brought here. The Contessa would never listen--Oh, it
is a mistake altogether--a mistake! You do not know what is my career.
It has all been thought of since I was born. Pray, pray, go away, and do
not say any more."

"Bice," he cried, more earnestly than ever, "I know. I heard that you
were to be sacrificed. Who is the lady who is going to sacrifice you to
Mammon? she is not your mother; you owe her no obedience. It is your
happiness, not hers, that is at stake. And I will preserve you from her.
I will guard you like my own soul; the winds of heaven shall not visit
your cheek roughly. I will cherish