“Oh, I cannot . . .  I cannot!” she murmured, “Not now—­not now!”

Madame Bozier looked at her in distress and amazement.

“What is the matter, dear?” she asked, “Some bad news?”

Silently Sylvie handed her Fontenelle’s letter.

“Dear me!  He is actually in Rome!” said the old lady, “And he asks you to be his wife!  Well, dear child, is not that what you had a right to expect from him?”

“Yes—­perhaps—­but I cannot—­not now!—­Oh no, not now!” murmured Sylvie, and her eyes, wet with tears, were full of an infinite pain.

“But—­pardon me dear—­do you not love him?”

Sylvie stood silent—­gazing blankly before her, with such perplexity and sorrow in her face that her faithful gouvernante grew anxious and troubled.

“Child, do not look like that!” she exclaimed, “It cuts me to the heart!  You were not made for sorrow!”

“Dear Katrine,—­we were all made for sorrow,” said Sylvie slowly, “Sorrow is good for us.  And perhaps I have not had sufficient of it to make me strong.  And this is real sorrow to me,—­to refuse Fontenelle!”

“But why refuse him if you love him?” asked Madame Bozier bewildered.

Sylvie sat down beside her, and put one soft arm caressingly round her neck.

“Ah, Katrine,—­that is just my trouble,” she said, “I do not love him now!  When I first met him he attracted me greatly, I confess,—­ he seemed so gentle, so courteous, and above all, so true!  But it was ‘seeming’ only, Katrine!—­and he was not anything of what he seemed.  His courtesy and gentleness were but a mask for licentiousness,—­his apparent truth was but a disguise for mere reckless and inconstant passion.  I had to find this bit by bit,—­and oh, how cruel was the disillusion!  How I prayed for him, wept for him, tried to think that if he loved me he might yet endeavour to be nobler and truer for my sake.  But his love was not great enough for that.  What he wanted was the body of me, not the soul.  What I wanted of him was the soul, not the body!  So we played at cross purposes,—­each with a different motive,—­and gradually, as I came to recognise how much baseness and brutality there is in mere libertinism,—­how poor and paltry an animal man becomes when he serves himself and his passions only, my attraction for him diminished,—­I grew to realise that I could never raise him out of the mud, because he had lived by choice too long in it,—­I could never persuade him to be true, even to himself, because he found the ways of falsehood and deceit more amusing.  He did unworthy things, which I could not, with all my admiration for him, gloze over or excuse;—­in fact, I found that in his private life and code of honour he was very little better than Miraudin,—­and Miraudin, as you know, one cannot receive!”

“He is in Rome also,” said Madame Bozier, “I saw his name placarded in the streets only yesterday, and also outside one of the leading theatres.  He has brought all his Parisian company here to act their repertoire for a few nights before proceeding to Naples.”