Napraxine sighed.
‘I should have never changed,’ he said with ardour, though with timidity, as though he were a lover of eighteen.
‘You have never changed,’ she said with that smile which she could render enchanting in sweetness and in graciousness. ‘You have always been much better to me than I have deserved, and you have always been the most generous and the most amiable of men. Now go; I have many things to do, and I want my women.’
Napraxine grew red with pleasure at her praise, and his pale eyes shone with eagerness, delight, and the admiration which she had hated so intensely in the early years of their marriage. He stooped towards her, breathless with his gratitude, and his hopes suddenly aroused after so many years of despair and of resignation.
‘Nadine,’ he murmured. ‘Even now—now—if you would? None of them have loved you as I do.’
She stretched out her hand so that his lips, which would fain have gone elsewhere, were forced to remain there.
‘Perhaps,’ she said vaguely, still with that enchanting smile which was to him like a glimpse into Paradise itself. ‘Do not ask for too much at first; au revoir.’
Then she rang for her maids, and he was forced to withdraw; but he went with all the forces of a re-awakened passion throbbing in his veins and beating at his heart, like a swarm of bees roused by a ray of warmth from winter torpor.