"Come with me. I will introduce you."

"Ask her if you may."

"Really, there is no need to be particular with her; come."

What he said troubled me. I feared to discover that Marguerite
was not worthy of the sentiment which I felt for her.

In a book of Alphonse Karr entitles Am Rauchen, there is a man
who one evening follows a very elegant woman, with whom he had
fallen in love with at first sight on account of her beauty. Only
to kiss her hand he felt that he had the strength to undertake
anything, the will to conquer anything, the courage to achieve
anything. He scarcely dares glance at the trim ankle which she
shows as she holds her dress out of the mud. While he is dreaming
of all that he would do to possess this woman, she stops at the
corner of the street and asks if he will come home with her. He
turns his head, crosses the street, and goes sadly back to his
own house.

I recalled the story, and, having longed to suffer for this
woman, I was afraid that she would accept me too promptly and
give me at once what I fain would have purchased by long waiting
or some great sacrifice. We men are built like that, and it is
very fortunate that the imagination lends so much poetry to the
senses, and that the desires of the body make thus such
concession to the dreams of the soul. If any one had said to me,
You shall have this woman to-night and be killed tomorrow, I
would have accepted. If any one had said to me, you can be her