But if, with this sketch of his life, correctly described, Panine thought to turn the young girl against him, he was mistaken.  He had counted without considering Jeanne’s sanguine temperament, which would lead her to make any sacrifices to keep the man she adored.

“If you were rich, Serge,” she said, “I would not have made an effort to bring you back to me.  But you are poor and I have a right to tell you that I love you.  Life with you would be all devotedness and self-denial.  Each pain endured would be a proof of love, and that is why I wish to suffer.  Your life with mine would be neither sad nor humiliated; I would make it sweet by my tenderness, and bright by my happiness.  And we should be so happy that you would say, ’How could I ever have dreamed of anything else?’”

“Alas!  Jeanne,” replied the Prince; “it is a charming and poetic idyl which you present to me.  We should flee far from the world, eh?  We should go to an unknown spot and try to regain paradise lost.  How long would that happiness last?  A season during the springtime of our youth.  Then autumn would come, sad and harsh.  Our illusions would vanish like the swallows in romances, and we should find, with alarm, that we had taken the dream of a day for eternal happiness!  Forgive my speaking plain words of disenchantment,” added Serge, seeing Jeanne rising abruptly, “but our life is being settled at this moment.  Reason alone should guide us.”

“And I beseech you to be guided only by your heart,” cried Mademoiselle de Cernay, seizing the hands of the Prince, and pressing them with her trembling fingers.  “Remember that you loved me.  Say that you love me still!”

Jeanne had drawn near to Serge.  Her burning face almost touched his.  Her eyes, bright with excitement, pleaded passionately for a tender look.  She was most fascinating, and Panine, usually master of himself, lost his presence of mind for a moment.  His arms encircled the shoulders of the adorable pleader, and his lips were buried in the masses of her dark hair.

“Serge!” cried Mademoiselle de Cernay, clinging to him whom she loved so fondly.

But the Prince was as quickly calmed as he had been carried away.  He gently put Jeanne aside.

“You see,” he said with a smile, “how unreasonable we are and how easily we might commit an irreparable folly.  And yet our means will not allow us.”

“In mercy do not leave me!” pleaded Jeanne, in a tone of despair.  “You love me!  I feel it; everything tells me so!  And you would desert me because you are poor and I am not rich.  Is a man ever poor when he has two arms?  Work.”

The word was uttered by Jeanne with admirable energy.  She possessed the courage to overcome every difficulty.

Serge trembled.  For the second time he felt touched to the very soul by this strange girl.  He understood that he must not leave her with the slightest hope of encouragement, but throw ice on the fire which was devouring her.