He returned again and again, in the belief that women easily forgive the ill-doing of which they are the cause, to that specious plea, and Marsa asked herself, in amazement, what aberration had possession of this man that he should even pretend to excuse his infamy thus.
“And is that,” she said at last, “all that you have to say to me? According to you, the thief has only to cry ‘What could I do? I loved that money, and so I stole it.’ Ah,” rising abruptly, “this interview has lasted too long! Good-evening!”
She walked steadily toward the door; but Michel, hastening round the other side of the table, barred her exit, speaking in a suppliant tone, in which, however, there was a hidden threat:
“Marsa! Marsa, I implore you, do not marry Prince Andras! Do not marry him if you do not wish some horrible tragedy to happen to you and me!”
“Really?” she retorted. “Do I understand that it is you who now threaten to kill me?”
“I do not threaten; I entreat, Marsa. But you know all that there is in me at times of madness and folly. I am almost insane: you know it well. Have pity upon me! I love you as no woman was ever loved before; I live only in you; and, if you should give yourself to another—”
“Ah!” she said, interrupting him with a haughty gesture, “you speak to me as if you had a right to dictate my actions. I have given you my forgetfulness after giving you my love. That is enough, I think. Leave me!”
“Marsa!”
“I have hoped for a long time that I was forever delivered from your presence. I commanded you to disappear. Why have you returned?”
“Because, after I saw you one evening at Baroness Dinati’s (do you remember? you spoke to the Prince for the first time that evening), I learned, in London, of this marriage. If I have consented to live away from you previously, it was because, although you were no longer mine, you at least were no one else’s; but I will not—pardon me, I can not—endure the thought that your beauty, your grace, will be another’s. Think of the self-restraint I have placed upon myself! Although living in Paris, I have not tried to see you again, Marsa, since you drove me from your presence; it was by chance that I met you at the Baroness’s; but now—”