“Tempt you,” she repeated softly. “But if I wanted it?”
“But you do not, Clémence,” he said gravely and sadly. “You are only pretending for my sake, for my father’s sake, for the sake of your own ideals. And presently you would come to hate me.”
She rose and moved restlessly.
“Do—you—not believe in love,” she asked hesitatingly “in love being stronger than—anything?”
“Yes.”
“Then why cannot we—surmount this?”
Luc was silent.
“Why?” persisted Clémence.
He thought she was straining towards him through the darkness.
“Ah, my dear,” he cried brokenly, “if you loved me—how different! You said just now, ‘I could have done it—you would never have known.’ Do not try to deceive me.”