"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born class you so nobly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been conjoined in your devoir. It were a melancholy pity they should be eternally divorced."
Bending over her, he exclaimed:
"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful, Odille, and end my anxiety."
He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with grave stony composure:
"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circumstances honour and trust the women, who as a dernier ressort bear their names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love you?"
"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"
"And if you fail—woefully, as fail you must?"
"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find the heart that successfully defies my worship. But if you remained indifferent—ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be blessed by your presence, your society—and that alone were worth all other women!"
"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows, an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the classic aphorisms? Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Have you no fear that you are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"
"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove
Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."