"I thought I loved her with a fine, true love, but she showed me it was only a base imitation. I offered her my youth, my strength, my future, and she would have taken them and—broken them and scattered them in my face and—and laughed at me. When I found it out, I—well, never mind, but you can bet all your pretty French philosophy I didn't go about Paris looking for billiard players to kill on her account."
It was not a gallant speech, but it rang true, a desperate cry from the soul depths of this unhappy man, and Pussy Wilmott shrank away as she listened.
"Then why did you quarrel with Martinez?" demanded the judge.
"Because he was interfering with a woman whom I did love and would fight for——"
"For God's sake, stop," whispered the lawyer.
"I mean I would fight for her if necessary," added the American, "but I'd fight fair, I wouldn't shoot through any hole in a wall."
"Then you consider your love for this other woman—I presume you mean the girl at Notre-Dame?"
"Yes."
"You consider your love for her a fine, pure love in contrast to the other love?"
"The other wasn't love at all, it was passion."