It was the third day after Law’s entry into Paris, and the first time for more than two long years that he found himself alone with the Lady Catharine Knollys.  His eagerness might have excused his impetuous and boastful speech.

As for the Lady Catharine, that one swift, electric moment at the street curb had well-nigh undone more than two years of resolve.  She had heard herself, as it were in a dream, promising that this man might come.  She had found herself later in her own apartments, panting, wide-eyed, afraid.  Some great hand, unseen, uninvited, mysterious, had swept ruthlessly across each chord of womanly reserve and resolution which so long she had held well-ordered and absolutely under control.  It was self-distrust, fear, which now compelled her to take refuge in this woman’s fence of speech with him.  “Surely,” argued she with herself, “if love once dies, then it is dead forever, and can never be revived.  Surely,” she insisted to herself, “my love is dead.  Then—­ah, but then was it dead?  Can my heart grow again?” asked the Lady Catharine of herself, tremblingly.  This was that which gave her pause.  It was this also which gave to her cheek its brighter color, to her eye a softer gleam; and to her speech this covering shield of badinage.

Yet all her defenses were in a way to be fairly beaten down by the intentness of the other.  All things he put aside or overrode, and would speak but of himself and herself, of his plans, his opportunities, and of how these were concerned with himself and with her.

“There are those who judge not so harshly as yourself, Madam,” resumed Law.  “His Grace the regent is good enough to believe that my studies have gone deeper than the green cloth of the gaming table.  Now, I tell you, my time has come—­my day at last is here.  I tell you that I shall prove to you everything which I said to you long ago, back there in old England.  I shall prove to you that I have not been altogether an idler and a trifler.  I shall bring to you, as I promised you long ago, all the wealth, all the distinction—­”

“But such speech is needless, Mr. Law,” came the reply.  “I have all the wealth I need, nor do I crave distinction, save of my own selection.”

“But you do not dream!  This is a day unparalleled.  There will be such changes here as never yet were known.  Within a week you shall hear of my name in Paris.  Within a month you shall hear of it beyond the gates of Paris.  Within a year you shall hear nothing else in Europe!”

“As I hear nothing else here now, Monsieur?”

Like a horse restless under the snaffle, the man shook his head, but went on.  “If you should be offered wealth more than any woman of Paris, if you had precedence over the proudest peers of France—­would these things have no weight with you?”

“You know they would not.”

Law cast himself restlessly upon a seat across the room from her.  “I think I do,” said he, dejectedly.  “At times you drive me to my wit’s end.  What then, Madam, would avail?”