“Now, Daniel, look at me! Need I tell you who the woman is whom I have chosen for you? It is—the Countess Ville-Handry.”
He shook and trembled; but he controlled himself by a supreme effort, and calmly smiling, in a half tender, half ironical tone, he replied,—
“Why, oh, why! do you speak to me of unattainable happiness? Are you not married?”
“I may be a widow.”
These words from her lips had a fearful meaning. But Daniel was prepared for them, and said,—
“To be sure you may. But, unfortunately, you, also, are ruined. You are as poor as I am; and we are too clever to think of joining poverty to poverty.”
She looked at him with a strange, sinister smile. She was evidently hesitating. A last ray of reason lighted up the abyss at her feet. But she was drunk with pride and passion; she had taken a good deal of wine; and her usually cool head was in a state of delirium.
“And if I were not ruined?” she said at last in a hoarse voice; “what would you say then?”
“I should say that you are the very woman of whom an ambitious man of thirty might dream in his most glorious visions.”
She believed him. Yes, she was capable of believing that what he said was true; and, throwing aside all restraint, she went on,—