"I love you," he repeated, compressing his lips. "Why 'no, Monsieur Zhone, no'?"
"I do not know." Angélique drew her hand back and arranged her roses over and over, looking down at them in blind distress.
"Is it Pierre Menard?"
She glanced up at him reproachfully.
"Oh, monsieur, it is only that I do not want"—She put silence in the place of words. "Monsieur," she then appealed, "why do men ask girls who do not want them to? If one appeared anxious, then it would be reasonable."
"Not to men," said Rice, smiling. "We will have what is hard to be got. I shall have you, my Angélique. I will wait."
"Monsieur," said Angélique, thinking of an obstacle which might block his way, "I am a Catholic, and you are not."
"Priests don't frighten me. And Father Olivier is too sensible an old fellow to object to setting you in the car of my ambition."
They stood in silence.
"Good-night, Monsieur Zhone," said Angélique. "Don't wait."