And he spoke very earnestly, very simply: remember that she had loved him once, loved and trusted him. He had been the ideal of her girlhood, and though she had remorselessly hurled him down from his high pedestal since then, there remained nevertheless, somewhere in the depths of her heart, a lingering thought of tenderness for him.
"Lydie!" he now said appealingly.
"Yes?"
"Let me be the means of easing your heart from its load of sorrow. You spoke of my wife just now. See, I do not shirk the mention of her name. I swear to you by that early love for you which was the noblest, purest emotion of my life, that I do not wrong her by a single thought when I ask for your friendship. You are so immeasurably superior to all other women, Lydie, that in your presence passion itself becomes exalted and desire transformed into a craving for sacrifice."
"Oh! how I wish I could believe you, Gaston," she sighed.
"Try me!"
"How?"
"Let me guess what troubles you now. Oh! I am not the empty-headed fop that you would believe. I have ears and eyes, and if I hold aloof from Court intrigues, it is only because I see too much of their inner workings. Do you really believe that I do not see what goes on around me now? Do I not know how your noble sympathy must at this very moment be going out to the unfortunate young prince whom you honour with your friendship? Surely, surely, you cannot be a party to the criminal supineness which at this very moment besets France, and causes her to abandon him to his fate?"
"Not France, Gaston," she protested.
"And not you, surely. I would stake my life on your loyalty to a friend."