“She nodded.
“‘I had laid out my last five-franc piece that I might see you there.—Do you recollect our walk in the Jardin des Plantes? The hire of your cab took everything I had.’
“I told her about my sacrifices, and described the life I led; heated not with wine, as I am to-day, but by the generous enthusiasm of my heart, my passion overflowed in burning words; I have forgotten how the feelings within me blazed forth; neither memory nor skill of mine could possibly reproduce it. It was no colorless chronicle of blighted affections; my love was strengthened by fair hopes; and such words came to me, by love’s inspiration, that each had power to set forth a whole life—like echoes of the cries of a soul in torment. In such tones the last prayers ascend from dying men on the battlefield. I stopped, for she was weeping. Grand Dieu! I had reaped an actor’s reward, the success of a counterfeit passion displayed at the cost of five francs paid at the theatre door. I had drawn tears from her.
“‘If I had known——’ she said.
“‘Do not finish the sentence,’ I broke in. ‘Even now I love you well enough to murder you——’
“She reached for the bell-pull. I burst into a roar of laughter.
“‘Do not call any one,’ I said. ‘I shall leave you to finish your life in peace. It would be a blundering kind of hatred that would murder you! You need not fear violence of any kind; I have spent a whole night at the foot of your bed without——’
“‘Monsieur——’ she said, blushing; but after that first impulse of modesty that even the most hardened women must surely own, she flung a scornful glance at me, and said:
“‘You must have been very cold.’
“‘Do you think that I set such value on your beauty, madame,’ I answered, guessing the thoughts that moved her. ‘Your beautiful face is for me a promise of a soul yet more beautiful. Madame, those to whom a woman is merely a woman can always purchase odalisques fit for the seraglio, and achieve their happiness at a small cost. But I aspired to something higher; I wanted the life of close communion of heart and heart with you that have no heart. I know that now. If you were to belong to another, I could kill him. And yet, no; for you would love him, and his death might hurt you perhaps. What agony this is!’ I cried.