Her friend was troubled.

Both ladies knew what there would be to encounter better than he.

But the man, strong in his belief in himself, imposed his will on them.
Alvan and Clotilde clasped hands as they went downstairs to Madame Emerly's reception room.

She could hardly speak: 'Do not forsake me.' 'Is this forsaking ?' He could ask it in the deeply questioning tone which supplies the answer.
'Oh, Alvan!' She would have said: 'Be warned.' He kissed her fingers.

'Trust to me.' She had to wrap her shivering spirit in a blind reliance and utter leaning on him.
She could almost have said: 'Know me better'; and she would, sincere as her passion in its shallow vessel was, have been moved to say it for a warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation (rapidly degenerating to desperation) inspired her with the thought of her being a part of this handsome, undaunted, triumph-flashing man.
Such a state of blind reliance and utter leaning, however, has a certain tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doing it prepares the spirit to be a melting prize of the winner.
Men and women alike, who renounce their own individuality by cowering thus abjectly under some other before the storm, are in reality abjuring their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius of Power in whatsoever direction it may chance to be manifested, in whatsoever person.