"By the force of your passion."
"Passion! and how can I inspire it?"
"Stop, you are but a notary bound up with a sexton; you make me pity you. Am I to teach you your part? You are ugly; be terrible, your ugliness will be forgotten. You are old; be energetic, your age will be overlooked. You are repulsive; be threatening. Since you cannot be the noble horse, who neighs proudly in the midst of his wives, be not, at least, the stupid camel, who bends the knee and crooks the back; be a tiger. An old tiger, who roars in the midst of carnage, has also its beauty; his tigress answers him from the depths of the desert."
At this language, which was not without a sort of bold natural eloquence, Jacques Ferrard shuddered, at the savage and almost ferocious expression of the face of Cecily, who, with heaving bosom, expanded nostril, haughty mouth, fixed on him her large black and burning eyes.
Never had she appeared so lovely.
"Speak, speak again!" cried he, passionately; "you speak seriously this time. Oh! if I could——"
"One can do what one wishes," said Cecily, abruptly.
"But——"
"But I tell you that if you wish, repulsive as you are——"
"Yes, I will do it! Try me, try me!" cried Jacques Ferrand, more and more excited.