“I swear that it is so. In all my life, although am compelled to treat women with courtesy and sometimes to affect flirtation, because of my profession as a diplomatist, I have loved only one woman—yourself;” and I raised her chilly hand to my lips, kissing it fervently.
Mine was no mere caprice at that moment. With an all-consuming passion I loved her, and was prepared on her account to make any sacrifice she demanded. Let the reader remember what had already been told me, and reflect that, like many another man, I loved madly, and was heedless of any consequences that might follow. In this particular I was not alone. Thousands before me had been allured to their ruin by a woman’s eyes, just as thousands of brave women’s hearts have been broken and their lives wrecked by men’s false oaths of fidelity. I have heard wiseacres say that the woman only suffers in such cases; the man never. Whether that rule proves always true will be shown in this strange story of my own love.
She drew her hand away slowly, but forcibly, saying:
“You cannot love two women. Already you have shown a preference for a wife of your own people.”
“It is all over between us,” I protested. “Mine was a mere passing fancy, engendered, I think, by the loneliness I suffered when I lost you.”
“Ah,” (she smiled sadly), “that is all very well! A woman, when once played false by the man she loves and trusts, is never the same—never!”
“Then am I to understand, Yolande, that you refuse to pardon me, or to accept my affection?”
“I have already pardoned you,” she faltered; “but to accept the love you once withdrew from me without just reason is, I regret to say, impossible.”
“You speak coldly, as though you were refusing a mere invitation to dinner, or something of no greater importance,” I protested. “I offer you my whole heart, my love—nay, my life;” and I held her hand again, looking straight into those wonderful eyes, now so calm, so serious, that my gaze wavered before them.
Slowly she shook her head, and her trembling breast rose and fell again.