“Ah! madame,” cried la Peyrade, ardently, “I should then be the happiest of unhappy men; for that hatred would seem to me sweeter and more precious than your indifference.  But you do not hate me; why should you feel to me that most blessed feminine sentiment which Scribe has depicted with such delicacy and wit?”

Madame de Godollo did not answer immediately.  She lowered her eyelids, and the deeper breathing of her bosom gave to her voice when she did speak a tremulous tone:—­

“The hatred of a woman!” she said.  “Is a man of your stoicism able to perceive it?”

“Ah! yes, madame,” replied la Peyrade, “I do indeed perceive it, but not to revolt against it; on the contrary, I bless the harshness that deigns to hurt me.  Now that I know my beautiful and avowed enemy, I shall not despair of touching her heart; for never again will I follow any road but the one that she points out to me, never will I march under any banner but hers.  I shall wait—­for her inspiration, to think; for her will, to will; for her commands, to act.  In all things I will be her auxiliary,—­more than that, her slave; and if she still repulses me with that dainty foot, that snowy hand, I will bear it resignedly, asking, in return for such obedience one only favor,—­that of kissing the foot that spurns me, of bathing with tears the hand that threatens me.”

During this long cry of the excited heart, which the joy of triumph wrung from a nature so nervous and impressionable as that of the Provencal, he had slidden from his chair, and now knelt with one knee on the ground beside the countess, in the conventional attitude of the stage, which is, however, much more common in real life than people suppose.

“Rise, monsieur,” said the countess, “and be so good as to answer me.”  Then, giving him a questioning look from beneath her beautiful frowning brows, she continued:  “Have you well-weighed the outcome of the words you have just uttered?  Have you measured the full extent of your pledge, and its depth?  With your hand on your heart and on your conscience, are you a man to fulfil those words?  Or are you one of the falsely humble and perfidious men who throw themselves at our feet only to make us lose the balance of our will and our reason?”

“I!” exclaimed la Peyrade; “never can I react against the fascination you have wielded over me from the moment of our first interview!  Ah! madame, the more I have resisted, the more I have struggled, the more you ought to trust in my sincerity and its tardy expression.  What I have said, I think; that which I think aloud to-day I have thought in my soul since the hour when I first had the honor of admittance to you; and the many days I have passed in struggling against this allurement have ended in giving me a firm and deliberate will, which understands itself, and is not cast down by your severity.”

“Severity?” said the countess; “possibly.  But you ought to think of the kindness too.  Question yourself carefully.  We foreign women do not understand the careless ease with which a Frenchwoman enters upon a solemn engagement.  To us, our yes is sacred; our word is a bond.  We do and we will nothing by halves.  The arms of my family bear a motto which seems significant under the present circumstances,—­’All or Nothing’; that is saying much, and yet, perhaps, not enough.”