'
"I looked at her, and my eyes glittered with anger. Sometimes a crime
may be a whole romance; I understood that just then. She was so
accustomed, no doubt, to the most impassioned declarations of this
kind, that my words and my tears were forgotten already.
"'Would you marry a peer of France?' I demanded abruptly.
"'If he were a duke, I might.'
"I seized my hat and made her a bow.
"'Permit me to accompany you to the door,' she said, cutting irony in
her tones, in the poise of her head, and in her gesture.
"'Madame----'
"'Monsieur?'
"'I shall never see you again.'
"'I hope not,' and she insolently inclined her head.
"'You wish to be a duchess?' I cried, excited by a sort of madness
that her insolence roused in me. 'You are wild for honors and titles?
Well, only let me love you; bid my pen write and my voice speak for
you alone; be the inmost soul of my life, my guiding star! Then, only
accept me for your husband as a minister, a peer of France, a duke. I
will make of myself whatever you would have me be!'
"'You made good use of the time you spent with the advocate,' she
said smiling. 'There is a fervency about your pleadings.'
"'The present is yours,' I cried, 'but the future is mine! I only
lose a woman; you are losing a name and a family.
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