“Can you not guess? Have you forgotten? Ah, Denise, twelve months ago you promised——”
“No, no,” she broke in, eagerly, “I said I would reflect.”
“There is only one thing that a poor Vicomte and a soldier of France can desire—your heart, Denise; your love, Denise; the heart and the love of the most beautiful and loyal woman in France, the heart of the Marquise de Beau Séjour. And André de Nérac loves the Marquise as he loves France. Can he say more?”
“I think not,” she said, averting her eyes, “and the Marquise de Beau Séjour thanks the Vicomte de Nérac for his words and his homage—to France.”
“I do not desire thanks—I——”
“Then go and do your duty as a noble and a soldier, and when peace and victory are ours perhaps I——”
“I cannot wait till then. Have pity, Denise, have pity on the man who was your playmate, who loved you then and who loves you now. Remember, remember, I beg you, that over there in England the one thought that consoled my prisoner’s lot was the hope that when I returned to you—you would——”
“But, André, I cannot give you an answer, here, now——”
“Give it me then before I return to the war, that I may know whether I am to live in hope, or to die sword in hand and in despair.”
“There is more than one marquise in the world,” she said, quietly.