And then, a second later, she could have screamed aloud in apprehension, for the book of Jean Jacques Rousseau lay tumbled in the grass where he had flung it, even as he flung himself upon his knees before her.

"You may take it indeed that I love--that I love you, Mademoiselle." The audacious words being spoken, his courage oozed away and anti-climax, followed.

He paled and trembled, yet he knelt on until she should bid him rise, and furtively he watched her face.

He saw it darken; he saw the brows knit; he noted the quickening breath, and in all these signs he read his doom before she uttered it.
"Monsieur, monsieur," she answered him, and sad was her tone, "to what lengths do you urge this springtime folly?
Have you forgotten so your station--yes, and mine--that because I talk with you and laugh with you, and am kind to you, you must presume to speak to me in this fashion?
What answer shall I make you, Monsieur--for I am not so cruel that I can answer you as you deserve." An odd thing indeed was La Boulaye's courage.

An instant ago he had felt a very coward, and had quivered, appalled by the audacity of his own words.