"I am in earnest, Lydie. Why should you doubt? Are you not beautiful enough to satisfy any man's ardour?"
"Am I not influential enough, you mean," she said, with a slight tremor in her rich young voice, "to satisfy any man's ambition?"
"Is ambition a crime in your eyes, Lydie?"
"No; but——"
"I am ambitious; you cannot condemn me for that," he said, now speaking in more impressive tone. "When we were playmates together, years ago, you remember? in the gardens at Cluny, if other lads were there, was I not always eager to be first in the race, first in the field—first always, everywhere?"
"Even at the cost of sorrow and humiliation to the weaker ones."
He shrugged his shoulders with easy unconcern.
"There is no success in life for the strong," he said, "save at the cost of sorrow and humiliation for the weak. Lydie," he added more earnestly, "if I am ambitious it is because my love for you has made me humble. I do not feel that as I am, I am worthy of you; I want to be rich, to be influential, to be great. Is that wrong? I want your pride in me, almost as much as your love."
"You were rich once, Gaston," she said, a little coldly. "Your father was rich."
"Is it my fault if I am poor now?"