Her face flushed.
“Ah, Monseigneur!”
“Forgive an old man, very humble before your beauty. I think no one else ever kissed you?”
“Never,” she said fiercely—“never—nor he often; I could not bear it, for I loved him—too much.”
She drew her hand away, and as if her own words had loosened memories of too sweet a rapture to be endured she began to weep hotly.
“You can never forsake him!” cried the Marquis. “No—no—and you will make life so pleasant to him that he will not regret even—glory.”
He took the hem of her cloak and kissed it.
“Thank God for women like you.”
She looked up with wet and terrified eyes.
“Do not praise me—I do not know myself—I must have been very young—a few months ago—I said things I did not understand. Let me go, Monseigneur.”