Here we found Mademoiselle Gros, already bonneted and shawled. I went over to the window, where my ears drank in a little comedy of pathetic explanation and injured silence; humiliating apology and continued silence, generous proposal of one month's salary, hinted acceptance of three. From the three months' minimum Ferret would not budge; in the Countess' soul fear of a new scene fought an attacking battle against long-entrenched parsimony; fear won—and money passed.

"I will see you have the carriage for the station. The Havre train: you are returning to your relatives there? Good, I will see you again at the moment of departure."

"Thank you, Madame la Comtesse. I will take leave now of my successor." And she held out her wizened claw to me.

"Well, I hope she will be," said the Countess. "You will, dear Mademoiselle, will you not?" she asked, as the door closed upon the other.

"How, Madame? Mademoiselle Gros' successor?"

"Oh, I don't mean as lady's companion, of course, not as her official successor." (Nervous snigger.) "For that post I must try to find some one else. It will be difficult: they are all so exacting nowadays, so unreliable. Oh, it will be difficult. I meant, would you succeed poor little Gros as my friendly adviser, my confidante?"

"But, Madame, I am so young. A young foreign girl, who knows very little of the world! I hope always to be your friend; but a confidante, like Mademoiselle Gros—I don't think I should like to—"

"Mademoiselle, there are many things I do not like, also. Do you think that I like to be spoken to by my own children as I was in front of 'a young foreign girl' this morning? I come of an ancient family: there is still pride in France. The new generation of young girls is terrible. I would never have dared to speak to my dear mother as Suzanne and Elise do to theirs; I would have died first—"

"Madame," I interrupted, "do you love your daughters?"

"Love them? of course I do! At the same time—" She shrugged her shoulders and resumed her plaint.

"Ah, it is hard; I fly from trouble, and it comes always my way. I need peace, and there is always strife. I am so unhappy, so worried, so alone; I trust no one, I believe nothing they tell me. If our relatives were to hear of this! But they shall not; not for worlds would I confide in them. But one must confide in somebody, mustn't one? You, Mademoiselle, you have seen now the kind of thing I have to bear—I am only surprised that you have been so long here without seeing an exhibition like today's. You know now how my daughters treat their mother—"

"Madame," I interposed, "I know nothing. The whole scene at luncheon leaves me bewildered. What did happen?"

"Something, I'm sure. Gros must have seen something: not that at bottom she was reliable, but she could not have invented the whole thing like that, could she? And I was beginning to have a kind of suspicion myself, too. But when Suzanne explained, it seemed true, didn't it? She was never a child for falsehoods. And then I remembered how Gros hated Monsieur de Fouquier—"

"Why?"

"Oh, she always hated him ever since she's been here. She was always trying to poison my mind against him: as if she needed to! And as if a poor creature like that was able to influence me. She hated him so because he wanted me to part with her, and she knew it. He was always hoping she would leave."

"Why?" again.

"Because she was always talking against him to me: a vicious circle is it not? So perhaps what Gros said today was merely out of spite against him. Still, the very idea is terrible."

"Why—if I may—if you will forgive my asking—why is the idea of Mademoiselle Suzanne and Monsieur de Fouquier so terrible?"

"I will tell you in a moment. But Elise's manner? What did that mean? She frightened me; she was so hard and bitter. I do not understand. Ah, that would be infinitely worse: the idea of him and Elise. Fouquier one day master of this chÂteau, ruler in my house,—ah no, no, there are limits to what I could endure. Yet there is something with one of the two: I feel there is something. But which?"

"Why either, Madame? If Mademoiselle Gros' story about Suzanne is all a lie—"

"It might be a lie. It never does to be too hopeful; I am always nursing false hopes."

"Well, assume it's a lie, which after what you have told me about Mademoiselle Gros' spite sounds likely; well, that disposes of Suzanne; while as to Elise, except for her wild talk, which means nothing except that she was angry, have you the tiniest reason for suspecting anything of her?"

"How comforting to hear you talk so! Somehow I feel there may be nothing in it after all. But if there were, how terrible!"

"Why, Madame?"

"Ah, you don't know. It is de Fouquier."

"He is a cousin—"

"Only a second cousin."

"Because he is poor?"

"There is that, of course: but listen, I will tell you all."

She looked nervously towards the door, and dropped her voice to a melodramatic whisper. "Listen, Mademoiselle: he is an enemy. There are other bad points, of course: for instance, he is vicious; you are an English girl and understand what I mean. That is not important; all men are more or less like that. Then he is a thief and a cheat. Since my dear husband died, he has managed all my business affairs; all about the estates, you know. He has what we call a power-of-attorney, signs all documents to do with the property, collects all rents and dues, sees to the leases and the farms and all investments and improvements. Well, he is a robber. He takes commissions and bribes from the tenants and dealers; when he invests in the funds he makes a profit for himself; he falsifies all the documents he puts before me. Do you want evidence, proof? The tenants all come to me on the sly and tell me of his tricks. It was long before I discovered, and still longer before I took my courage in both hands and braved him with his treachery. Oh, I was prostrate with fear, but I worked myself into a temper and that helped me, and I told him in one word—Go!"

"And then?"

"Then the worst thing happened, the thing that had always held me back. He said that if I forced him to leave the chÂteau, he would publish abroad things he knew about my husband, would hold up the family name to ignominy and scorn, would prove to all the world that my husband possessed neither honesty nor honour. It was all false, or nearly all; but I was frightened lest he did know something really dishonourable. Anyway, I knew he would pretend he did, and so carry out his threat. Finally I gave in, though he saw the hate in my eyes, he saw that! So he stayed on. He goes more carefully, that is, he contents himself with stealing less. It is only because of this hold over me, through my affection for my dear husband's memory, that he stays. I hate him, and he hates me."

"Will he always stay?"

"Ah," she replied vaguely, "that's just it. I hope he will die. It is wicked of me, and I trust that the good God will pardon me. However, now you understand."

"I am beginning to understand. One thing, though. Surely, Madame, if he were to marry in the family, then he could have no reason to injure the family name—"

"Mademoiselle, for a man who has so spoken to enter our family would be the foulest dishonour." She drew herself up proudly; there was a touch of real majesty in her poor heroics. Then, subsiding into the customary worried-dormouse manner, puckering her brows, and poking forward her anxious nose: "If there is any danger, it must be stopped now—Oh, what a nightmare! We could easily manage Suzanne, but Elise would be terrible. We must find out for certain. Neither of them would tell me anything: I am only their mother! But you, that is different. They will talk freely to you about today, I feel sure they will, Suzanne for certain. You will tell me what they say?"

"Oh Madame, it would be unkind to make me promise that. I could not break their confidences any more than I could yours, could I?" (Much less so, I realized, as I liked the girls better; knowing that in the last resort I should be guided by preference rather than reason or even interest.)

"Then you'll not help me! You will leave me alone after all? Without husband, or friend, or companion, untrusted by my children" (whimper), "alone, alone? In the short time since you have come I have tried to make you happy in your life with us, and you will not do me this least service? Why even poor Gros, whom I never really liked, told me all—all she could see."

The last phrase turned me from pity to pertness. "Madame," I said, "I am not Mademoiselle Gros. I am a friend, not a spy."

"Spy," she repeated, a cold glint in her eyes; and I shrank away from her, not so much through fear of her anger as through shame at my own cruelty.

"No, no, Madame," I cried, "I did not really mean that. I only meant that I am so much friendlier with the girls than Mademoiselle Gros was, that it will be harder for me to be fair to them as well as to you. But I sympathize truly with all your troubles and anxieties. I do really, dear Madame, I do not say it to be polite—and I will always try to help you, I will help you however I can, I want to repay your many kindnesses."

"Ah, thank you, thank you," and she squeezed my hand affectionately, with tears in her eyes. "Now I must see Mademoiselle Gros off."

I followed her out, and went upstairs to my bedroom.

Suzanne was ensconced in my window-seat.

"So you've escaped at last. I ask pardon for installing myself here, but I knew it was the only place where I should have you to myself. What has the old dear been saying?"

"A good many things."

"I know. Begging you to be 'on my side, dear Mademoiselle.' Oh, don't worry, I've not been listening at the door; I've always left that to Gros, who never got anything but earache for her pains. I know it all by heart, though. In brief, she wound up by asking you precisely what I am here to ask you myself: in this delightful family circle of the aristocracy of France, will you be on my side? You hesitate: did you hesitate when she asked you?"

"No, I said 'No' straight out. I said it wouldn't be fair to you two for me to promise that."

"Well, you haven't said 'No' straight out to me. Which means you like me better."

"You know it. But everybody has been so kind, I would rather not take a side at all."

"You'll have to, my poor Mademoiselle! You have seen too much. You have already become more like one of the family in your few months here than any outsider before. And you are too good a friend not to be worth trying for."

"Too useful an ally."

"I mean that. Don't be cynical. Because I like you—and I do enormously—it is not wrong for me to want you to help me, is it? Suppose there were a bad quarrel between Mamma and me, and you became mixed up in it, so that you had to choose to side with one or the other of us, which would it be?"

"I don't think anything like that would arise, and I don't see what I could do anyway; but my sympathies would be with you."

"Thank you, I am so happy. I didn't want to make you promise. You would help me, wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps. On one condition, that you told me everything."

"I promise that. But just for fun, I'd like you to tell me beforehand what you have already guessed on your own: what, for instance, you thought of the pleasant little incidents at luncheon today. Just for fun."

"I might say something that would offend you."

"Say whatever you think, I shall like it better."

"It was the suddenness of what happened that took my breath away; I hadn't time to ask myself what I thought. Then Mademoiselle Gros seemed so natural that I thought she must be telling the truth: I'm sorry, but it was difficult to think otherwise, wasn't it?"

"Go on."

"Then you denied it; but even if true I could not understand why your mother was so tragical. Then, when Elise became so wild and strange, I had a new doubt—that perhaps it was Elise, and not you, who was fond of Monsieur de Fouquier—"

Suzanne interrupted with a shriek of laughter: "Oh, no, no, no! that is a bit too good."

"Why was she so strange in the way she spoke about him, then?", piqued.

"Oh, that is just like her. I forgot of course that before today you have never seen her as she really is. Why did she speak so wildly? Simply and solely to shield and protect me; to muddle old Mother, and to turn her suspicions and anger away from me. She cannot bear to see Mamma rave at me; it gives her pain, physical pain. It is the way she loves me. I am not worthy of her, sometimes I wish I was. I let her kiss me and sacrifice herself for me; but I can't give her what she wants; I like her, of course, but only as an ordinary sister does. What happened today was a sham to save me."

"I am glad. Now I know how much she loves you, there can never be any danger of my going against her because of my promise just now to you. That is the reason I hesitated—"

"I see. There are gradations. You like Mamma, but would throw her over for me, whom you like better. You like me, but at a pinch would throw me over for Elise."

"It is not like that." (It was.) "Anyway, I've done what you asked and told you what I thought. Now you tell me. Before I can help you, the first thing I have to know is,—well, the chief thing. Did you—was what Mademoiselle Gros said true?"

"Perfectly. Poor dear Mamma! It is the hundredth time Emile has held my hand at table, though the first time we were caught. We embrace each other whenever we have the opportunity; in his office downstairs, in the grounds, anywhere. Listen. He loves me. I love him. That is all that matters. Ah, he is so smart, so chic, so courteous, so perfect a lover! He adores me, worships me, would do anything to please me. Perhaps I don't love him quite as much as he does me, though that will come: oh, soon, soon! He buys me presents, beautiful bracelets and things. I cannot wear them, though, because of Mamma. Oh, but I love him. The joy of meeting alone in the park, being near together, embracing, hearing his declarations, loving each other. Oh love! There is only love! Ah, I see you understand—"

I flushed, chiefly in anger: that she should dare, even unwittingly, to put de Fouquier in the same place as Robbie.

"What is it?" she asked sharply, "there is something." ("O Lord," I prayed, "send me a lie to tell her, send swiftly!") To gain time: "Unless you promise, solemnly, not to be offended. I cannot tell you."

"I promise."

(God gracious; lie to hand.) "Well, if what I am going to say is not nice—in comparison—for your friend, it is because it is especially nice for you. I like you very very much, but I don't think Monsieur de Fouquier is worthy of you."

"Why?" with a touch of curtness which in loyalty to her promise she strove to hide.

"It is hard to give the reason—"

"Yes, I know, very hard! Because Mother made you promise not to. She has told you Emile is a thief and a cheat because rents are going down owing to bad times, accused him of muddling accounts which she doesn't vaguely comprehend, not any more than I should. She's been repeating to you all the lies told her by dealers and farmers he doesn't buy carts and ploughs and stock from, who say he has been bribed by those he does buy them from. I know all the stories. How dare she poison your mind with lying slanders!"

"My reason for thinking him unworthy of you is something quite different. Is he a good man?"

She looked puzzled. Then she gave a vague little laugh. "As good as any one else, I suppose. What do you mean by 'good?'"

"Clean-living. Is he a pure man?"

Now she laughed uproariously: her voice jarred on me. "Is he a pure man? My dear Mademoiselle, of course he's not. That's a what-d'ye-call-it, a contradiction in terms, like saying a white nigger. Emile is like the others: keeps mistresses, goes to actress' dressing-rooms, sees cocottes."

"Sees them?" I repeated the silly euphemism mechanically.

"Sleeps with them, possesses them then, if you prefer. Why look so wretched about it? It doesn't worry me. It is the world." Her candid pleasure in shocking me, and the more refined delight of superior worldly-wisdom both failed to annoy me as they should have done: I could only think of the nightmare foulness itself.

"You say—it doesn't worry you? You can love a man like that?"

"Naturally. Better than any other kind, if there were another kind. The more women he has loved, the greater is the compliment in choosing me. If a man is a better schoolmaster the more experience he has had and the more children he has taught, then a man is a better lover the more experience he has had and the more women he has loved. That's logic. Besides, I prefer the man of the world."

"Suzanne!" I cried, calling her by her Christian name for the first time—a twinkle in her eyes acknowledged the fact; I was too deadly earnest for her to dare to smile—"Suzanne, is it true? You are not exaggerating for fun, or to shock me? Do most young girls of our age believe that? Does your mother know you think like that? Do you realize how sick and wretched you are making me? Tell me it is not true!"

"It is true, Mary. I suppose there is still a pretence kept up by mothers, and curÉs, that young girls don't know how men live; it may have been so once, but now, my dear, we are in the Second Empire! Maybe Mamma fondly imagines Elise and I are still in our cradles, and daren't look at a pair of trousers: she can imagine just what she pleases for all I care. But I am really sorry I have made you miserable. What is the good of worrying about it? The world is like that, you must take it so—"

"I refuse to."

"You'll have to, or else become a nun. A Protestant nun, how funny! Because all men are the same."

"They are not!" I cried with fury, visualizing Robbie and the Stranger. "You shall not say it."

"Very well, then, I grant you I know one exception, priests apart, of course. He is a cousin of ours, on Mother's side, living down in the Gard, and a Protestant. A ridiculous creature—I don't mean because he's a Protestant—so ugly and gauche, and overgrown and lanky, with a pale face all covered with pimples. He blushes whenever you look at him, and can't look a girl straight in the face. He has never seen a woman, oh dear no! Does something else though, I expect. At any rate, all nice men are the same. If it is a fault at all, it is Nature's, not theirs. It is hardly a reason for hating Emile, that he is normal."

"It would be with me."

"Are you so sure? Suppose you loved a man, passionately, as you would—ah, you colour—and found out that he saw cocottes, would you fling him over for that?"

"It is a horrible, ridiculous supposition, so I refuse to discuss it. Englishmen are not like that."

"Vraiment? Your men know how to amuse themselves in Paris, I fancy."

"It is no good your insisting; I will not believe it. But it will haunt me, I shall never be able to cleanse my mind. Stop."

"Certainly. But as to Emile. Now then, Mary, forget the last ten minutes' talk, and believe me when I say this: I love him. As much as you would love a man, for all your different ideas on the other thing. You accept that?"

"You say so. That is enough for me. My not thinking him worthy of you makes no difference to what you feel."

"Good. And if a man and a girl love each other, you agree that it is wrong for any one else to come in between them?"

"Yes, if they truly love."

"Well, we do; passionately. I want nobody to come in between me and him, and I want your sympathy. I ask for nothing but to be left in peace. For the present, till I think the right moment has come, you must help me to keep my secret from Mamma. She will make a lot of fuss at first, then reconcile herself quickly to the idea, and finally approve our betrothal. That is, if no one else interferes—"

"Who? Mademoiselle Gros is going, or is gone by now. Some relation, perhaps, that I haven't met?"

"No-o. There is nobody really. I only said if. If—Elise, you know—she won't exactly take to the idea at first." Suddenly she was nervous. The moment she spoke of her sister, optimism and boldness seemed to leave her.

"But you told me she was taking your side in the matter—"

"Yes, because she loves me: but for that very same reason she might—just at first—be a little jealous of my love for Emile. She guessed it, but I don't think she was ever quite certain we were lovers till today: that is why it was so nice of her to defend me as she did, and that is why she was so bitter. It is funny, I know, for a sister to be jealous of her sister's lover. At this very moment, for instance, she is probably locked in her bedroom, lying on the bed, crying her heart out—"

Crying her heart out.

"However, she will get over that. Poor Elise, my dear good sister!"

She moved to the door. "I am so glad we have had this long talk. You are a good friend, Mary: you see I have dropped 'Mademoiselle' too. It will be fun at dinner tonight. Mother will have a face as long as a pole!"

* * * * * * *

"Crying her heart out" was my burden all the evening. At dinner I had a whole side of the table to myself, facing a gay over-talkative Suzanne and an unruffled de Fouquier. The Countess wore an even more harried expression than usual. Elise's place was empty.

"I do not understand, Madame," reported Gabrielle, her devoted chambermaid, "but Mademoiselle refuses to come down to dinner, refuses food, refuses to unlock her door." FranÇois confirmed.

From the moment Suzanne had left me I had been prompted to go and knock at her sister's door, to comfort her if she would let me. But I was unsure of my reception: she was proud enough to repulse me, to wish to enjoy her misery alone. As soon as I could slip away after dinner, I got back to my bedroom. There I tried "Not your business" and "Meddlesome Mary" and "She doesn't want you" and "You are only the foreign governess" and "You only want to wallow in her grief." Conscience was not convinced; instinct triumphed over sophistry and took me trembling to her door. Here I wavered. Pride shrank anew from a repulse.

"Mademoiselle," called her voice from within: I knocked, disingenuously. "Was that you calling?"

"It's six hours I have been waiting for you. Sit down, that settee is the most comfortable."

She was lying in bed, half-dressed: sore-eyed, haggard. In comparison, Suzanne had been hilarious, the Countess merely peevish. I knew with whom I "sided."

"Well," she began, "I suppose they have all been at you. Has Fouquier?"

"No."

"The other two then. Suzanne has confided to you that she loves that brute?"

"But you knew it?"

"Oh, I guessed, I guessed; but till today like a fool I hoped against hope. Now it is over. She loves him. She cannot ever again love me, save in a puny second place. Second place! I do not want it. I will not have it, I despise it, I trample on it! Love is a game for two, Mademoiselle; a tragedy for three. There is only love in the world, and it can never ever be mine. I cannot love or be loved if there is another."

"But she is your sister! How can you love her as you are saying? You cannot have the true passion of love for your sister."

"But if I have it, and know I have it, what then? Listen: There is no woman in the history of the world who ever loved any man more than I love Suzanne. 'Cannot' so love her, indeed: but I do! Every book I have ever read, every notion that has ever come to me from external things tells me that love is a passion a woman should feel for a man only; I look into my heart and find it is not so. I do not explain, or defend, or even understand. I suppose God fashions us in different moulds, makes some of us to love one way and some another. Why not? And why should He, Who, as your Bible says, is Himself Love, why should He limit this chief thing in His universe to the one narrow relationship of man and woman? A woman can love her friend more purely, more nobly than ever any man can; and with the bond of blood in addition, her heart can hold a love more intimate, more tender than you will find in all the stories of the sexes. Am I mad to talk so? It is the truth. Do you understand? Do you see?"

I was slowly learning to accept as true for others emotions my heart could never feel, my mind with difficulty comprehend.

"I think I see. But how many other sisters are there who feel as you do? Does she?"

"Ah no! She has never cared, never conceived how I love her. She is careless, indifferent, does not come to me when I need her: an ordinary sister. Sometimes the contrast between her insouciance of what I have felt and my passionate love for her has maddened me. Yet indifference, coldness, I could have borne for ever, but not that she should love some one else. Ah, no, no, no! Oh, my little sister, thou art the only creature I have ever known to love, and thou hast killed me. God made me to be loveless. He decided this cruelty from the Beginning. I had to lose her. I keep saying over and over to myself: it had to be, it had to be—"

"Had it to be him?" I was crying, but had to stop her somehow.

"No," with sudden fury. "If she is to have a man, it shall be some one less vile than he. Have you any conception, Mademoiselle, of what this man is?"

"No," I replied, which after hearing the Countess' version and then Suzanne's, was near the truth.

"First of all, he is a scoundrel, who for years has been using his position here to rob my mother; he must have pocketed hundreds of thousands of francs of ours. Later we will talk of my plans to get rid of him, in which I want you to help me: for I am determined to drive him out of this house. I have known all this, more or less, since I was twelve, but for different reasons I have never thought it worth a storm till now—"

"Till he is taking Suzanne from you."

"True. I know his thefts are not the reason, but they are my best weapon, and at the least a sufficient excuse for his having no handling of my affairs: I am nearly twenty-one, and his power-of-attorney for Mamma shall not hold for me. Then, he insults my father's memory and threatens mother he will make public things to my father's discredit."

"What kind of things?"

"Oh, money-matters, politics; his private life too. Mother is frightened, whimpers to herself 'I dare not.' Then I happen to know a few details about this brute's habits, and that even for a man—even for a man, mark you—he is foul. Not for my own sake, but for her own, she shall not be sacrificed to this beast. I shall stop it. And you will help me, because you are fond of Suzanne."

"No, because I am fond of you."

"For both of us, then. Before you came just now I had made up my mind, crying it out alone, that if ever a man the least bit worthy should want her, I would stifle my jealousy, sacrifice myself, and wish her well."

"But, Mademoiselle—you being you, and your love for your sister being what it is—would you ever admit that any man was the least bit worthy? I don't think you believe there is any such man in the world."

"Nor is there."

"That is foolishness. There are as many good men in the world as good women; probably more."

"The foolishness, my poor little English girl, is yours. You simply do not know. You simply do not know what men are. They are our masters, and we are their slaves. They gorge themselves on the pleasures of life, and leave to us the sorrows. With the bourgeoisie and the peasants it is the same. The girl brings her little dot, for him to spend in the cafÉs and on gaming and vice; she brings her health for him to ruin, her self-respect for him to steal, her body for him to befoul. Her father will sell her to any filthy jaundiced old rouÉ whom he thinks a good enough 'party'—he would be a good deal more careful in matching his mares and sows. If there is poverty to be faced or shame to be suffered, who bears the burden? When in one of the villages there is an unwedded peasant girl who gives birth to a baby, which of them ought to suffer, and which does? The girl is turned away from every honest door, trampled under: the man, who will naturally have a poor wife of his own, laughs, pays nothing, forgets, and seduces another. That is the law of the Empire, that is justice, that is 'the way of the world.' Once when I helped a poor drab out of my own pocket—'Remember your position,' said dear Mamma. Bah! position. Why, in our class it is worse: we must sit at home and simper and embroider and maintain the great traditions of the lady of France, while Monsieur obeys only his pleasure, squanders our wealth, gambles, haunts Paris, and keeps his woman. We smirk and say nothing. 'Such a happy marriage,' they say. Ah, their filthy politeness, their ducking and bowing and fawning, picking up fans, opening doors, kissing our hands:—every time mine is kissed, which isn't often I assure you, I feel there is a hole burned in my flesh. Ah their beautiful woman, their adorable sex! The moment our backs are turned, at once their voices become low and greasy, they are all winks and leers and sniggers and bawdy tales. It makes me vomit—"

"Elise!"

"Don't stop me, don't dare! No other French girls are as I am: till now I never found any human soul whom I could tell what I feel: I must have my way, and you must listen. Do you deny it—the injustice, the cruelty and the foulness? Oh why is the world so cruelly made that while women know how to love, men only know how to lust?"

All through this tirade I was conscious of an instinct within me that answered to its bitterness, an instinct of sex-hatred for men as men, a savage half-sadistic hope that women would one day get even, would triumph, would trample! But as her bitterness waxed, mine waned, and the remembered male faces of my heart put this evil instinct to flight.

"It is not true. I hate this wickedness with the selfsame horror as you, but though I know nothing of the world, I know down in my own soul—I know as I know God, I know as I know myself—that they are not all like that. God did not make one sex all good, the other all bad. I know there are men who love as-purely and passionately as we do. You would believe it if there was one such who loved you. Suppose a man did love you, then what?"

"Ah, suppose, suppose!" She savagely ripped open her blouse and vest, caught my hands and placed them on her bare body, on a poor flat cold bosom. "Ha, ha, ha!" She laughed like a madwoman.

Such is the egotism of the human heart that even in that moment of purest pity, when I would have given my right hand to help her and ease her sorrow, even in that moment, and against my will and against a loathing for myself and my selfishness that accompanied (but could not stifle) the joy, there coursed through my veins a high triumphal joy that I was not as she. In an involuntary gesture I threw back my head, and my bosom heaved with pride; a hundred half-glimpsed notions of delight tore through my soul.

"Ah, suppose, suppose!" she was mocking, "how I pine for that dear supposed one.—No, dear, I had but one love, my little sister, and a man has taken her away. She was not worthy, but I loved her. Now I have no one, and no one will ever love me. It is cruel and all the universe is cruel. God is cruel to let the world be so:—oh, I forgot, He is a Man, and had no daughter, but a Son. Oh my little Suzanne that I loved—oh no, no, I cannot hear it!"

She broke down utterly, and sobbed as if her heart was breaking. My arms were around her. Very long I held her, till she had sobbed some of the misery away.

After a long while she sprang free, dried her eyes, and said in her calmest every-day voice: "I am hungry."

"Shall I go downstairs and tell them, or ring?"

"Ring; Gabrielle will come. I don't want the others. Before you ring—"

"Yes?"

"Kiss me."