The Vicomte broke into a laugh. "They get up at five o'clock in the morning; they breakfast on boiled cabbage; they make flannel waistcoats, and very good sweetmeats! Why do you talk so, mademoiselle? Why do you say that you would like to lead such a life? One might almost believe it is coquetry. Tenez, I believe it's ignorance,—ignorance of your own feelings, your own nature, and your own needs." M. de Treuil paused a moment, and, although I had a very imperfect notion of the meaning of his words, I remember being struck with the vehement look of his pale face, which seemed fairly to glow in the darkness. Plainly, he was in love. "You are not made for solitude," he went on; "you are not made to be buried in a dingy old château, in the depths of a ridiculous province. You are made for the world, for the court, for pleasure, to be loved, admired, and envied. No, you don't know yourself, nor does Bergerac know you, nor his wife! I, at least, appreciate you. I blow that you are supremely beautiful—"
"Vicomte," said Mlle. de Bergerac, "you forget—the child."
"Hang the child! Why did you bring him along? You are no child. You can understand me. You are a woman, full of intelligence and goodness and beauty. They don't know you here, they think you a little demoiselle in pinafores. Before Heaven, mademoiselle, there is that about you,—I see it, I feel it here at your side, in this rustling darkness—there is that about you that a man would gladly die for."
Mlle. de Bergerac interrupted him with energy. "You talk extravagantly. I don't understand you; you frighten me."
"I talk as I feel. I frighten you? So much the better. I wish to stir your heart and get some answer to the passion of my own."
Mlle. de Bergerac was silent a moment, as if collecting her thoughts. "If I talk with you on this subject, I must do it with my wits about me," she said at last. "I must know exactly what we each mean."
"It's plain then that I can't hope to inspire you with any degree of affection."
"One doesn't promise to love, Vicomte; I can only answer for the present. My heart is so full of good wishes toward you that it costs me comparatively little to say I don't love you."
"And anything I may say of my own feelings will make no difference to you?"
"You have said you love me. Let it rest there."