“Yes.” Felice arose. She looked down at him with a soft luminous expression. “Pierre, would it be such a sorry lot to remain with me? Could I not make you happy? This girl does not love you. I repeat it. In your heart you do not feel that she does, and will you force her to marry you because her father may demand it?”
“A thousand times no.”
“And if, after you had gone back, you were to find that she loved some one else would it not be harder then to give her up, who now is but a dream?”
“It would be harder.”
“Then—— You are very humble, too humble, Pierre Boutillier; many men have sued on their knees for what is yours on your own conditions. I give you M. Theodore Hervieu, my secretary, and you give yourself to me.”
“M. Hervet?”
“The same.”
Pierre too had arisen and was looking down at the graceful figure clad in its filmy silken robes. “And if I do not,” he said, hesitatingly, and pressing his hand over his eyes.
“Then I refuse to give up my slave, the man Thomas Hervet.” She drew herself away a few steps. “You are very hard, very unresponsive, very ungrateful, Pierre Boutillier. I do not wonder that Alaine did not love you.”
Pierre removed his hand from his eyes. He saw that there were tears standing in the soft eyes and that the bewitching red lips were quivering like a hurt child’s. He made a step forward. “Madame,” he hastened to say, “I accept. I offer you this poor, heavy-eyed, ungainly Pierre Boutillier in exchange for Theodore Hervieu. I am yours, madame, do as you will with me.” He knelt at her feet.