"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."
The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in the end he gave in.
"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste. Marie.
And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.
He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away. An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for example, would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would have felt it. But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became him.
"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he could go on.
She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when she spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:
"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't you? I suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was. And yet," she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right. No, let me talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you how it is with me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant that you and I were utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm moments, I know we are. I know that well enough. When you're not with me, I feel very sure about it. I think of a thousand excellent reasons why you and I ought to be no more to each other than friends. Do you know, I think my grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has prophetic powers. They say very old people often have. He and I talked about you when I came home from that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a month ago--the dinner-party where you and I first met. I told him that I had met a man whom I liked very much--a man with great charm; and though I must have said the same sort of thing to him before about other men, he was quite oddly disturbed, and talked for a long time about it--about the sort of man I ought to marry and the sort I ought not to marry. It was unusual for him. He seldom says anything of that kind. Yes, he is right. You see, I'm ambitious in a particular way. If I marry at all I ought to marry a man who is working hard in politics or in something of that kind. I could help him. We could do a great deal together."
"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head, smiling down upon him.
"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the field. You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die splendidly, but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have. And a soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"