"Your wife!" Louise repeated.
"If you will do me that great honor."
It seemed at first as if her nerves were strained to the breaking-point. The situation was one with which her brain seemed unable to grapple. She set her teeth tightly. Then she had a sudden interlude of wonderful clear-sightedness. She was almost cool.
"You must forgive my surprise, Eugène," she begged. "We have known each other now for some twelve years, have we not?—and I believe that this is the first time you have ever hinted at anything of the sort!"
"One gathers wisdom, perhaps, with the years," he replied. "I am forty-one years old to-day. I have spent the early hours of this afternoon in reflection, and behold the result!"
"You have spoken to me before," she said slowly, "of different things. You have offered me a great deal in life, but never your name. I do not understand this sudden change!"
"Louise," he declared, "if I do not tell you the truth now, you will probably guess it. Besides, this is the one time in their lives when a man and a woman should speak nothing but the truth. It is for fear of losing you—that is why."
Her self-control suddenly gave way. She threw herself back in her chair. She began to laugh and stopped abruptly, the tears streaming from her eyes. The prince leaned forward. He took her hands in his, but she drew them away.
"You are too late, Eugène!" she said. "I almost loved you. I was almost yours to do whatever you liked with. But somehow, somewhere, notwithstanding all your worldly knowledge and mine, we missed it. We do not know the truth about life, you and I—at least you do not, and I did not."
He rose very slowly to his feet. There was no visible change in his face save a slight whitening of the cheeks.