“That is just what you might say to a man if you cared nothing at all for him,” cried Lucien, frantic with passion.
“If you cannot feel all the sincere love underlying my ideas, you will never be worthy of me.”
“You are throwing doubts on my love to dispense yourself from responding to it,” cried Lucien, and he flung himself weeping at her feet.
The poor boy cried in earnest at the prospect of remaining so long at the gate of paradise. The tears of the poet, who feels that he is humbled through his strength, were mingled with childish crying for a plaything.
“You have never loved me!” he cried.
“You do not believe what you say,” she answered, flattered by his violence.
“Then give me proof that you are mine,” said the disheveled poet.
Just at that moment Stanislas came up unheard by either of the pair. He beheld Lucien in tears, half reclining on the floor, with his head on Louise’s knee. The attitude was suspicious enough to satisfy Stanislas; he turned sharply round upon Châtelet, who stood at the door of the salon. Mme. de Bargeton sprang up in a moment, but the spies beat a precipate retreat like intruders, and she was not quick enough for them.
“Who came just now?” she asked the servants.
“M. de Chandour and M. du Châtelet,” said Gentil, her old footman.