"Mademoiselle," he returned tremulously, "when I wrote the causerie you refer to, my interest in you was purely the interest of a journalist, so for that I do not deserve your thanks. But since I have had the honour to meet you I have experienced an interest altogether different; the interest of a man, of a—a—" Here his teeth chattered, and he paused.
"Of a what?" she asked softly, with a dreamy air.
"Of a friend," he muttered. A gust of fear had made the "friend" an iceberg. But her clasp tightened.
"I am glad," she said. "Ah, you have been good to me, monsieur! And if, in spite of everything, I am sometimes sad, I am, at least, never ungrateful."
"You are sad?" faltered the vacillating victim. "Why?"
Her bosom rose. "Is success all a woman wants?"
"Ah!" exclaimed de Fronsac, in an impassioned quaver, "is that not life? To all of us there is the unattainable—to you, to me!"
"To you?" she murmured. Her eyes were transcendental. Admiration and alarm tore him in halves.
"In truth," he gasped, "I am the most miserable of men! What is genius, what is fame, when one is lonely and unloved?"
She moved impetuously closer—so close that the perfume of her hair intoxicated him. His heart seemed to knock against his ribs, and he felt the perspiration burst out on his brow. For an instant he hesitated—on the edge of his grave, he thought. Then he dropped her hand, and backed from her. "But why should I bore you with my griefs?" he stammered. "Au revoir, mademoiselle!"