"Not as long as you live, Louis."
"Oh!... And suppose I were not living?"
"I don't know."
"You'd recover, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Well, you'd never have any other temptation—"
She turned scarlet.
"That is wicked!"
"It certainly is," he said with great gravity; "and I must come to the scarcely flattering conclusion that there is in me a source of hideous depravity, the unseen emanations of which, like those of the classic upas-tree, are purest poison to a woman morally constituted as you are."
She looked up as he laughed; but there was no mirth in her bewildered eyes.