“You?  A mean hound?” Her voice broke and the tears welled up in her eyes.  “You have done nothing for me to be proud of?  You?  You who did what you did last night?  Yes, I was there.  I saw and heard.  Listen!” She rose to her feet and stood opposite to him, her eyes all stars, her figure trembling and her hands moving in her Frenchwoman’s passionate gestures.  “When I saw in the newspapers about your father, my heart was wrung for you.  I knew what it meant.  I knew how you must suffer.  I came up straight to town.  I wanted to be near you.  I did not know how.  I did not want you to see me.  I called in my steward.  ‘How can I see the election?’ We talked a little.  He went and hired a room opposite the Town Hall.  I waited there in the darkness.  I thought it would last forever.  And then came the result and the crowd cheered and I thought I should choke.  I sobbed, I sobbed, I sobbed—­and then you came.  And I heard, and then I held out my arms to you alone in the dark room—­like this—­and cried:  ‘Paul, Paul!"’ Woman conquered.  Madness surged through him and he flung his arms about her and they kissed long and passionately.

“Whether you do me the honour of marrying me or not,” she said a while later’ flushed and triumphant, “our lives are joined together.”

And Paul, still shaken by the intoxication of her lips and hair and clinging pressure of her body, looked at her intensely with the eyes of a man’s longing.  But he said:  “Nothing can alter what I said a few minutes ago—­not all the passion and love in the world.  You and I are not of the stuff, thank God, to cut ourselves adrift and bury ourselves in some romantic island and give up our lives to a dream.  We’re young.  We’re strong.  We both know that life is a different sort of thing altogether from that.  We’re not of the sort that shirks its responsibilities.  We’ve got to live in the world, you and I, and do the world’s work.”

“Parfaitement, mon bien aime.”  She smiled at him serenely.  “I would not bury myself with you in an Ionian island for more than two months in a year for anything on earth.  On my part, it would be the unforgivable sin.  No woman has the right, however much she loves him, to ruin a man, any more than a man has the right to ruin a woman.  But if you won’t marry me, I’m perfectly willing to spend two months a year in an Ionian island with you,” and she looked at him, very proud and fearless.

Paul took her by the shoulders and shook her, more roughly than he realized.  “Sophie, don’t tempt me to a madness that we should both regret.”

She laughed, wincing yet thrilled, under the rude handling, and freed herself.  “But what more can a woman offer the man who loves her—­that is to say if he does love her?”

“I not love you?” He threw up his hands—­“Dear God!”

She waved him away and retreated a step or two, still laughing, as he advanced.  “Then why won’t you marry me?  You’re afraid.”