He offered to rise, but was restrained by kindly hands.
"No: rest there a little longer, give yourself a little time before you try to get up."
"But I shall tire you..."
"No. And if you did, what of that? It seems to me, my friend, I owe to you my life."
"To me it seems you do," he agreed. "But such a debt is always the first to be forgotten, is it not?"
"You reproach me?"
"No, mademoiselle; not you, but the hearts of men... We are all very much alike, I think."
"No," the woman insisted: "you do reproach me. In your heart you have said: 'She has forgotten that, but for me, she would have been dead long years ago. This service, too, she will presently forget.' But you are wrong, my friend. It is true, the years between had made that other time a little vague with old remoteness in my memory; but to-night has brought it all back and--a renewed memory never fades."
"So one is told. But trust self-interest at need to black it out."
"You have no faith in me!" she said bitterly.