Do with me as you will.

I love you." By an effort she crushed down her loathing of him--a loathing that grew a hundredfold as she beheld him now transformed by his amorousness into the semblance almost of a satyr--and listened to his foolish rantings.
As Marquise de Condillac it hurt her pride to listen and not have him whipped for his audacity; as a woman it insulted her.

Yet the Marquise and the woman she alike repressed.

She would give him no answer--she could not, so near was she to fainting with disdain of him--yet must she give him hope against the time when, should all else fail, she might have to swallow the bitter draught he was now holding to her lips.

So she temporized.
She controlled her voice into a tone of gentle sadness; she set a mask of sorrow upon her insolent face.
"Monsieur, monsieur," she sighed, and so far overcame her nausea as for an instant to touch his hand in a little gesture of caress, "you must not speak so to a widow of six months, nor must I listen." The quivering grew in his hands and voice; but no longer did they shake through fear of a rebuff: they trembled now in the eager strength of the hope he gathered from her words.