“Marquise,” he cried, “you say no more than what is just. But punish me no further. I meant not what I said. I was beside myself. Let me atone—let my future actions make amends for that odious departure from my true self.”
There was no scorn now in her smile; only an ineffable tenderness, beholding which he felt it in his heart to hang if need be that he might continue high in her regard. He sprang forward, and took the hand she extended to him.
“I knew, Tressan,” said she, “that you were not yourself, and that when you bethought you of what you had said, my valiant, faithful friend would not desert me.”
He stooped over her hand, and slobbered kisses upon her unresponsive glove.
“Madame,” said he, “you may count upon me. This fellow out of Paris shall have no men from me, depend upon it.”
She caught him by the shoulders, and held him so, before her. Her face was radiant, alluring; and her eyes dwelt on his with a kindness he had never seen there save in some wild daydream of his.
“I will not refuse a service you offer me so gallantly,” said she. “It were an ill thing to wound you by so refusing it.”
“Marquise,” he cried, “it is as nothing to what I would do did the occasion serve. But when this thing ‘tis done; when you have had your way with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, and the nuptials shall have been celebrated, then—dare I hope—?”
He said no more in words, but his little blue eyes had an eloquence that left nothing to mere speech.
Their glances met, she holding him always at arm’s length by that grip upon his shoulders, a grip that was firm and nervous.