“What is the matter with you?” cried the fair Diane, noticing a hesitation which a woman never forgives.  Your truly adroit lover will hasten to agree with any fancy that Woman may take into her head, and suggest reasons for doing otherwise, while leaving her free exercise of her right to change her mind, her intentions, and sentiments generally as often as she pleases.  Victurnien was angry for the first time, angry with the wrath of a weak man of poetic temperament; it was a storm of rain and lightning flashes, but no thunder followed.  The angel on whose faith he had risked more than his life, the honor of his house, was very roughly handled.

“So,” said she, “we have come to this after eighteen months of tenderness!  You are unkind, very unkind.  Go away!—­I do not want to see you again.  I thought that you loved me.  You do not.”

“I do not love you?” repeated he, thunderstruck by the reproach.

“No, monsieur.”

“And yet——­” he cried.  “Ah! if you but knew what I have just done for your sake!”

“And how have you done so much for me, monsieur?  As if a man ought not to do anything for a woman that has done so much for him.”

“You are not worthy to know it!” Victurnien cried in a passion of anger.

“Oh!”

After that sublime, “Oh!” Diane bowed her head on her hand and sat, still, cold, and implacable as angels naturally may be expected to do, seeing that they share none of the passions of humanity.  At the sight of the woman he loved in this terrible attitude, Victurnien forgot his danger.  Had he not just that moment wronged the most angelic creature on earth?  He longed for forgiveness, he threw himself before her, he kissed her feet, he pleaded, he wept.  Two whole hours the unhappy young man spent in all kinds of follies, only to meet the same cold face, while the great silent tears dropping one by one, were dried as soon as they fell lest the unworthy lover should try to wipe them away.  The Duchess was acting a great agony, one of those hours which stamp the woman who passes through them as something august and sacred.

Two more hours went by.  By this time the Count had gained possession of Diane’s hand; it felt cold and spiritless.  The beautiful hand, with all the treasures in its grasp, might have been supple wood; there was nothing of Diane in it; he had taken it, it had not been given to him.  As for Victurnien, the spirit had ebbed out of his frame, he had ceased to think.  He would not have seen the sun in heaven.  What was to be done?  What course should he take?  What resolution should he make?  The man who can keep his head in such circumstances must be made of the same stuff as the convict who spent the night in robbing the Bibliotheque Royale of its gold medals, and repaired to his honest brother in the morning with a request to melt down the plunder.  “What is to be done?” cried the brother.  “Make me some coffee,” replied the thief.  Victurnien