‘She is the first woman of them all,’ he thought, as they descended the marble stairs towards the glades of the park, ‘the first who has had any sympathy with me. They have all thought me a fool for not turning round like the sluggard, and lying drugged in my golden nest. She understands very little because she does not understand the world; but she can imagine how all which the vulgar think so delightful drags me down like a wallet of stones.’
‘Yseulte,’ he said aloud, ‘do you know what all my millions cannot buy, and what I would give them all to be able to buy? Well, something like the mort sur le champ d’honneur, which was said for a hundred and fifty years when the name of Philippe de Valogne was called in the roll-call of the Grenadiers.’
The memory he recalled was one of the most glorious of her race; one of those traditions of pure honour which are common enough in the nobility of France. The Counts de Valogne had been behind none in high courage and lofty codes; and the local history of their province was studded with the exploits and the martial self-sacrifice whereby they had continually redeemed their extravagance and their idleness as courtiers and men of pleasure.
She turned to him with her brightest smile, and her hand touched his with a gesture caressing and timid.
‘He is mine; I will give him to you,’ she said, with a child’s abandonment and gaiety. ‘I am so glad that I have something to give!’
‘You will give his blood to my sons,’ said Othmar. ‘So you will give it to me.’