"Yes. Your father was right. You are one of these aristocrats . .
."

She drew herself up haughtily.

"What do you say? My father! . . . I an aristocrat."

"Oh! I don't mean that you are like the men and women of the time
of armours, castles, and great deeds. Oh, no! They stood on the
naked soil, had traditions to be faithful to, had their feet on
this earth of passions and death which is not a hothouse. They
would have been too plebeian for you since they had to lead, to
suffer with, to understand the commonest humanity. No, you are
merely of the topmost layer, disdainful and superior, the mere pure
froth and bubble on the inscrutable depths which some day will toss
you out of existence. But you are you! You are you! You are the
eternal love itself--only, O Divinity, it isn't your body, it is
your soul that is made of foam."

She listened as if in a dream. He had succeeded so well in his
effort to drive back the flood of his passion that his life itself
seemed to run with it out of his body. At that moment he felt as
one dead speaking. But the headlong wave returning with tenfold
force flung him on her suddenly, with open arms and blazing eyes.
She found herself like a feather in his grasp, helpless, unable to
struggle, with her feet off the ground. But this contact with her,
maddening like too much felicity, destroyed its own end. Fire ran
through his veins, turned his passion to ashes, burnt him out and
left him empty, without force--almost without desire. He let her