“You are more maliciously unkind to-night than I have ever known you.”

“Unkind!” she said, with a look which seemed to blend all feelings into one celestial emotion, “no, I am ill, I suffer, that is all.  Leave me, my friend; it is your manly right.  We women should ever please you, entertain you, be gay in your presence and have no whims save those that amuse you.  Come, what shall I do for you, friend?  Shall I sing, shall I dance, though weariness deprives me of the use of voice and limbs?—­Ah! gentlemen, be we on our deathbeds, we yet must smile to please you; you call that, methinks, your right.  Poor women!  I pity them.  Tell me, you who abandon them when they grow old, is it because they have neither hearts nor souls?  Wilfrid, I am a hundred years old; leave me! leave me! go to Minna!”

“Oh, my eternal love!”

“Do you know the meaning of eternity?  Be silent, Wilfrid.  You desire me, but you do not love me.  Tell me, do I not seem to you like those coquettish Parisian women?”

“Certainly I no longer find you the pure celestial maiden I first saw in the church of Jarvis.”

At these words Seraphita passed her hands across her brow, and when she removed them Wilfrid was amazed at the saintly expression that overspread her face.

“You are right, my friend,” she said; “I do wrong whenever I set my feet upon your earth.”

“Oh, Seraphita, be my star! stay where you can ever bless me with that clear light!”

As he spoke, he stretched forth his hand to take that of the young girl, but she withdrew it, neither disdainfully nor in anger.  Wilfrid rose abruptly and walked to the window that she might not see the tears that rose to his eyes.

“Why do you weep?” she said.  “You are not a child, Wilfrid.  Come back to me.  I wish it.  You are annoyed if I show just displeasure.  You see that I am fatigued and ill, yet you force me to think and speak, and listen to persuasions and ideas that weary me.  If you had any real perception of my nature, you would have made some music, you would have lulled my feelings—­but no, you love me for yourself and not for myself.”

The storm which convulsed the young man’s heart calmed down at these words.  He slowly approached her, letting his eyes take in the seductive creature who lay exhausted before him, her head resting in her hand and her elbow on the couch.

“You think that I do not love you,” she resumed.  “You are mistaken.  Listen to me, Wilfrid.  You are beginning to know much; you have suffered much.  Let me explain your thoughts to you.  You wished to take my hand just now”; she rose to a sitting posture, and her graceful motions seemed to emit light.  “When a young girl allows her hand to be taken it is as though she made a promise, is it not? and ought she not to fulfil it?  You well know that I cannot be yours.  Two sentiments divide and inspire the love of all the women of the earth.  Either they devote themselves