“No, Monsieur Gervase,” she said, “it is not so.  I am not one of those women who take every little idle word said by men in jest au grand serieux!  You have always been a kind and courteous friend, and if you ever fancied you had a warmer feeling for me, as you say, I am sure you were mistaken.  We often delude ourselves in these matters.  I wish, for your sake, I could think the Princess Ziska worthy of the love she so readily inspires.  But,—­I cannot!  My brother’s infatuation for her is to me terrible.  I feel it will break his heart,—­and mine!” A little half sob caught her breath and interrupted her; she paused, but presently went on with an effort at calmness:  “You talk of our leaving Egypt; how I wish that were possible!  But I spoke to Denzil about it on the night of the ball, and he was furious with me for the mere suggestion.  It seems like an evil fate.”

“It is an evil fate,” said Gervase gloomily.  “Enfin, my dear Helen, we cannot escape from it,—­at least, I cannot.  But I never was intended for good things, not even for a lasting love.  A lasting love I feel would bore me.  You look amazed; you believe in lasting love?  So do many sweet women.  But do you know what symbol I, as an artist, would employ were I asked to give my idea of Love on my canvas?”

Helen smiled sadly and shook her head.

“I would paint a glowing flame,” said Gervase dreamily.  “A flame leaping up from the pit of hell to the height of heaven, springing in darkness, lost in light; and flying into the centre of that flame should be a white moth—­a blind, soft, mad thing with beating, tremulous wings,—­that should be Love!  Whirled into the very heart of the ravening fire,—­crushed, shrivelled out of existence in one wild, rushing rapture—­that is what Love must be to me!  One cannot prolong passion over fifty years, more or less, of commonplace routine, as marriage would have us do.  The very notion is absurd.  Love is like a choice wine of exquisite bouquet and intoxicating flavor; it is the most maddening draught in the world, but you cannot drink it every day.  No, my dear Helen; I am not made for a quiet life,—­nor for a long one, I fancy.”

His voice unconsciously sank into a melancholy tone, and for one moment Helen’s composure nearly gave way.  She loved him as true women love, with that sublime self-sacrifice which only desires the happiness of the thing beloved; yet a kind of insensate rage stirred for once in her gentle soul to think that the mere sight of a strange woman with dark eyes,—­a woman whom no one knew anything about, and who was by some people deemed a mere adventuress,—­should have so overwhelmed this man whose genius she had deemed superior to fleeting impressions.  Controlling the tears that rose to her eyes and threatened to fall, she said gently,

“Good-bye, Monsieur Gervase!”

He started as from a reverie.

“Good-bye, Helen!  Some day you will think kindly of me again?”