“I would rather die,” she said.
It was difficult to reconcile words such as these with certain circumstances of Mlle. Lucienne’s existence,—her rides around the lake, for instance, in that carriage that came for her two or three times a week; her ever renewed costumes, each time more eccentric and more showy. But Maxence was not thinking of that. What she told him he accepted as absolutely true and indisputable. And he felt penetrated with an almost religious admiration for this young and beautiful girl, possessed of so much vivid energy, who alone, through the hazards, the perils, and the temptations of Paris, had succeeded in protecting and defending herself.
“And yet,” he said, “without suspecting it, you had a friend near you.”
She shuddered; and a pale smile flitted upon her lips. She knew well enough what friendship means between a youth of twenty-five and a girl of eighteen.
“A friend!” she murmured.
Maxence guessed her thought; and, in all the sincerity of his soul,
“Yes, a friend,” he repeated, “a comrade, a brother.” And thinking to touch her, and gain her confidence,
“I could understand you,” he added; “for I, too, have been very unhappy.”
But he was singularly mistaken. She looked at him with an astonished air, and slowly,
“You unhappy!” she uttered,—“you who have a family, relations, a mother who adores you, a sister.” Less excited, Maxence might have wondered how she had found this out, and would have concluded that she must feel some interest in him, since she had doubtless taken the trouble of getting information.