Then, when you are strong again, you can go back to the life you are leading, if you choose; but I am sure you will come to prefer a quiet life, which will make you happier and keep your beauty unspoiled." "You think like that to-night because the wine has made you sad, but you would never have the patience that you pretend to." "Permit me to say, Marguerite, that you were ill for two months, and that for two months I came to ask after you every day." "It is true, but why did you not come up ?" "Because I did not know you then." "Need you have been so particular with a girl like me ?" "One must always be particular with a woman; it is what I feel, at least." "So you would look after me ?" "Yes." "You would stay by me all day ?" "Yes.
"And even all night ?" "As long as I did not weary you." "And what do you call that ?" "Devotion." "And what does this devotion come from ?" "The irresistible sympathy which I have for you." "So you are in love with me?
Say it straight out, it is much more simple." "It is possible; but if I am to say it to you one day, it is not to-day." "You will do better never to say it." "Why ?" "Because only one of two things can come of it." "What ?" "Either I shall not accept: then you will have a grudge against me; or I shall accept: then you will have a sorry mistress; a woman who is nervous, ill, sad, or gay with a gaiety sadder than grief, a woman who spits blood and spends a hundred thousand francs a year.

That is all very well for a rich old man like the duke, but it is very bad for a young man like you, and the proof of it is that all the young lovers I have had have very soon left me." I did not answer; I listened.

This frankness, which was almost a kind of confession, the sad life, of which I caught some glimpse through the golden veil which covered it, and whose reality the poor girl sought to escape in dissipation, drink, and wakefulness, impressed me so deeply that I could not utter a single word.
"Come," continued Marguerite, "we are talking mere childishness.

Give me your arm and let us go back to the dining-room.

They won't know what we mean by our absence." "Go in, if you like, but allow me to stay here." "Why ?" "Because your mirth hurts me." "Well, I will be sad." "Marguerite, let me say to you something which you have no doubt often heard, so often that the habit of hearing it has made you believe it no longer, but which is none the less real, and which I will never repeat." "And that is... ?" she said, with the smile of a young mother listening to some foolish notion of her child.
"It is this, that ever since I have seen you, I know not why, you have taken a place in my life; that, if I drive the thought of you out of my mind, it always comes back; that when I met you to-day, after not having seen you for two years, you made a deeper impression on my heart and mind than ever; that, now that you have let me come to see you, now that I know you, now that I know all that is strange in you, you have become a necessity of my life, and you will drive me mad, not only if you will not love me, but if you will not let me love you." "But, foolish creature that you are, I shall say to you, like Mme.