"With the prince. You've seen through him and yet ... yet you go on putting up with him, yet you're always meeting him. Let me finish," he said, looking around him: there was no one in the restaurant save two Italians, sitting at the far table, and they could speak without being overheard. "Let me finish," he repeated, when she tried to interrupt him. "Let me say what I have to say. You of course are free to act as you please. But I am your friend and I want to advise you. What you are doing is not right. The prince is a cad, a low, common cad. How can you accept presents from him and invitations? Why did you compel me to come yesterday? The dinner was one long torture to me. You know how fond I am of you: why shouldn't I confess it? You know how high I hold you. I can't bear to see you lowering yourself with him. Let me speak. Lowering, I say. He is not worthy to tie your shoe-strings. And you play with him, you jest with him, you flirt—let me speak—you flirt with him. What can he be to you, a coxcomb like that? What part can he play in your life? Let him marry Miss Hope: what do you care about either of them? What do inferior people matter to you, Cornélie? I despise them and so do you. I know you do. Then why do you cross their lives? Let them live in the vanity of their titles and money: what is it all to you? I don't understand you. Oh, I know, you're not to be understood, all the woman part of you! And I love everything that I see of you: I love you in everything. It doesn't matter whether I understand you. But I do feel that this isn't right. I ask you not to see the prince any more. Have nothing more to do with him. Cut him.... That dinner, last night, was a torture to me...."
"My poor boy," she said, gently, filling his glass from their fiasco, "but why?"
"Why? Why? Because you're lowering yourself."
"I do not stand so high. No, let me speak now. I do not stand high. Because I have a few modern ideas and a few others which are broader-minded than those of most women? Apart from that I am an ordinary woman. When a man is cheerful and witty, it amuses me. No, Duco, I'm speaking now. I don't consider the prince a cad. I may think him a coxcomb, but I think him cheerful and witty. You know that I too am very fond of you, but you are neither cheerful nor witty. Now don't get angry. You are much more than that. I'm not even comparing il nostro Gilio with you. I won't say anything more about you, or you will become conceited, but cheerful and witty you are not. And my poor nature sometimes feels a need for these qualities. What have I in my life? Nothing but you, you alone. I am very glad to possess your friendship, very happy in having met you. But why may I not sometimes be cheerful? Really, there is a little light-heartedness in me, a little frivolity even. Am I bound to fight against it? Duco, am I wicked?"
He smiled sadly; there was a moist light in his eyes; and he did not answer.
"I can fight, if necessary," she resumed. "But is this a thing to fight against? It is a passing bubble, nothing more. I forget it the next minute. I forget the prince the next minute. And you I do not forget."
He was looking at her radiantly.
"Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don't flirt and fence with you? Shake hands and stop being angry."
She gave him her hand across the table and he pressed her fingers:
"Cornélie," he said, softly. "Yes, I feel that you are loyal. Cornélie, will you be my wife?"