“Whatever aim this confidence may have had, I am honored by it, mademoiselle, and I will endeavor to render myself worthy of it. But, good heaven, what can so affect you?”
“Nothing, sir, nothing,” replied Marguerite, endeavoring to overcome her emotion; “but it is—it is—that I have to tell you that—but—really—I am not sufficiently mistress of myself to—”
She staggered, and appeared as if about to fall; the baron sprang toward her to offer his support, but he had scarcely touched her when a flush of crimson suffused the cheeks of the young girl, and with a feeling, which might be attributed as well to modesty as to repugnance, she disengaged herself from his arms. Lectoure had taken her hand, and conducted her to a chair, against which she leaned, but would not seat herself in it.
“Good God!” exclaimed the baron, still retaining her hand, “it must then be something very difficult to utter, that has brought you hither! Or, without my at all suspecting it, has my being affianced to you already conferred upon me the imposing air of a husband?” Marguerite made another effort to withdraw her hand from the baron, and which induced the latter to observe it.
“How!” said he, “not satisfied with having the most adorable of faces, the elegant figure of a fairy, but you must have such lovely hands!—hands perfectly royal in their shape—why, ‘tis enough to make me expire at once.”
“I trust M. le Baron,” rejoined Marguerite, and making a last effort, she withdrew her hand from his grasp, “that the words with which you are now addressing me, are merely words of gallantry.”
“No, by my soul! they are the sincere truth.”
“Well then, I hope, should it be, which I much doubt, that you really think that which you have been pleased to say—I trust, I say, that such motives will not lead you to attach a higher value to the union which has been projected?”
“They will, indeed, and that I swear to you.”
“And yet,” continued Marguerite, gasping for breath, so much was her heart oppressed, “and yet, sir, you consider marriage as a solemn matter?”