'You! yourself, you bid me look into my heart ?' 'Do you suppose I fear ?' she cried, and looked at him with such a heightened colour, such bright eyes, and a smile of so abstruse a meaning, that the Baron discarded his last doubt.
'Ah, madam!' he cried, plumping on his knees.

'Seraphina! Do you permit me?
have you divined my secret?
It is true--I put my life with joy into your power--I love you, love with ardour, as an equal, as a mistress, as a brother-in-arms, as an adored, desired, sweet-hearted woman.

O Bride!' he cried, waxing dithyrambic, 'bride of my reason and my senses, have pity, have pity on my love!' She heard him with wonder, rage, and then contempt.

His words offended her to sickness; his appearance, as he grovelled bulkily upon the floor, moved her to such laughter as we laugh in nightmares.
'O shame!' she cried.

'Absurd and odious! What would the Countess say ?' That great Baron Gondremark, the excellent politician, remained for some little time upon his knees in a frame of mind which perhaps we are allowed to pity.