"Why?" She drew a long breath. "You are so big, so heroic!"
Javogues fell back into a chair, repeating:
"Extraordinary! I don't understand."
She threw herself into his arms with the movement of a child, and, without seeking to conceal her thoughts, repeated a hundred caresses while he continued to mumble stupidly:
"Extraordinary! Extraordinary!"
Finally her emotion penetrated him. He took her in his hands and held her from him, she coloring with pleasure at this show of force, which came to her as a caress.
Suddenly a tremor ran through his immense body, an upheaval out of which came something gentle and softened. He continued to hold her before him, without shifting the glance that plunged into her eyes, while the girl, turning in his grasp, repeated, "Let me go!" for, child that she was, she divined what was passing in him.
"But why," he repeated stupidly—"why do you love me? I don't understand. No other woman ever has."
"Because you are so heroic. All the others understand nothing of poverty and sorrow. You—you understand. You give hope to such as I. When I hear you speak those sublime thoughts, my heart swells. You too have suffered; you know the abyss." She added, not without elation: "I loved you from the first day. I never thought you'd notice me."
"It's true—really true, then—what you say to me?"