to take her hands; but she folded them before her with a little
prudish and indignant mein.--'Marry him, you have my permission,' said
I, replying to this gesture by using the formal _vous_ instead of
_tu_. 'Nay, better, I beg you to do so.'--'But,' cried she, falling at
my knees, 'there is some horrible mistake; I love no one in the world
but you; you may demand any proofs you please.'--'Rise, my dear,' said
I, 'and do me the honor of being truthful.'--'As before God.'--'Do you
doubt my love?'--'No.'--'Nor my fidelity?'--'No.'--'Well, I have
committed the greatest crime,' I went on. 'I have doubted your love
and your fidelity. Between two intoxications I looked calmly about
me.'--'Calmly!' sighed she. 'That is enough, Henri; you no longer love
me.'

"She had at once found, you perceive, a loophole for escape. In scenes
like these an adverb is dangerous. But, happily, curiosity made her
add: 'And what did you see? Have I ever spoken of the Duke excepting
in public? Have you detected in my eyes----?'--'No,' said I, 'but in
his. And you have eight times made me go to Saint-Thomas d'Aquin to
see you listening to the same mass as he.'--'Ah!' she exclaimed, 'then
I have made you jealous!'--Oh! I only wish I could be!' said I,
admiring the pliancy of her quick intelligence, and these acrobatic
feats which can only be successful in the eyes of the blind. 'But by
dint of going to church I have become very incredulous. On the day of
my first cold, and your first treachery, when you thought I was in
bed, you received the Duke, and you told me you had seen no one.'--'Do
you know that your conduct is infamous?'--'In what respect? I consider
your marriage to the Duke an excellent arrangement; he gives you a
great name, the only rank that suits you, a brilliant and
distinguished position. You will be one of the queens of Paris. I
should be doing you a wrong if I placed any obstacle in the way of