I leaned across the cloth and caught her hands and held them prisoner.
“More especially when it is shared by the woman he loves,” I continued, throwing discretion to the winds. “Ah, then he forgets the danger, mademoiselle! He remembers only that she is beside him,—that he may look into her eyes as I look into yours,—that he may kiss her hands as I kiss these dear ones. And when he knows that to restore her to her friends is to sever himself from her, he may well despond as he sees the hour approach.”
She sat looking at me, the color coming and going in her cheeks, her lips parted, her eyes a little misty. And she made no effort to take her hands away. Ah, what a woman she was! The beauty of her!—the whiteness, the delicacy, the slim grace!—and with it all, a woman’s passionate heart, a woman’s power of loving and desire of being loved! It was there, I knew, waiting to be awakened, needing only the touch of a certain hand, the sound of a certain voice.
“You really love me!” she murmured. “You really love me!”
“Oh, my dearest!” I cried. “Can you doubt it? Looking into my eyes, can you doubt it? And last night, looking into yours, I fancied that you swept aside the veil for a moment, and that I saw into your heart, your soul, and read a secret there which made me madly happy! Did I read aright?”
“Not to value your devotion would be indeed ungrateful, monsieur,” she answered in a whisper——
“It is not gratitude that I ask,” I broke in. “It was not gratitude that I saw! Did I read aright?”
“Suppose I say yes,” she said; “what is it you propose?”
“I propose to take you and keep you,” I answered madly, drawing her toward me, my blood on fire. “You do love me!—come, confess it! Look into my eyes and tell me! I defy the whole world to take you from me now!”
She swayed toward me for an instant, her lips parted, her eyes swimming in a veil of tears. I had won! I had won! Then she drew her hands away and sat erect, a convulsive shiver running through her.