“I seized my hat and made her a bow.
“‘Permit me to accompany you to the door,’ she said, cutting irony in her tones, in the poise of her head, and in her gesture.
“‘Madame——’
“‘Monsieur?’
“‘I shall never see you again.’
“‘I hope not,’ and she insolently inclined her head.
“‘You wish to be a duchess?’ I cried, excited by a sort of madness that her insolence roused in me. ‘You are wild for honors and titles? Well, only let me love you; bid my pen write and my voice speak for you alone; be the inmost soul of my life, my guiding star! Then, only accept me for your husband as a minister, a peer of France, a duke. I will make of myself whatever you would have me be!’
“‘You made good use of the time you spent with the advocate,’ she said smiling. ‘There is a fervency about your pleadings.’
“‘The present is yours,’ I cried, ‘but the future is mine! I only lose a woman; you are losing a name and a family. Time is big with my revenge; time will spoil your beauty, and yours will be a solitary death; and glory waits for me!’
“‘Thanks for your peroration!’ she said, repressing a yawn; the wish that she might never see me again was expressed in her whole bearing.