“Was he violent with you, Agatha?”
“He did not offer to strike me, nor yet to touch me, if you mean that: but he threatened me; and that in such awful sounding, and yet ridiculous language, that you would hardly know whether to laugh or to be angry if I could repeat it.”
“What did he say, Agatha?”
“Say! it would be impossible for me to tell you; he swung his arms like a country actor in a village barn, and declared that if he were not killed at Saumur, he would carry me away in spite of all that my friends could do to hinder him.”
“Poor fellow! poor Adolphe!” said Henri.
“You are not sorry I refused him? You would, indeed, have had to say, poor Agatha! had I done otherwise.”
“I am not sorry that you refused him, but I am sorry you could not love him.”
“Why you say yourself he is mad: would you wish me to love a madman?”
“It is love that has made him mad. Adolphe is not like other men; his passions are stronger; his feelings more acute; his regrets more poignant.”
“He should control his passions as other men must do,” said Agatha: “all men who do not, are madmen.” She remained silent for a few moments, and then added, “you are right in saying that love has made him mad; but it is the meanest of all love that has done so—it is self-love.”