see me again, neither you nor I can prevent the whole place from
believing that you are my lover, and you would cause me great
additional annoyance. You do not mean to do that, I think."

She said no more, but looked at him with a great dignity which abashed
him.

"I have done wrong, madame," he said, with deep feeling in his voice,
"but it was through enthusiasm and thoughtlessness and eager desire of
happiness, the qualities and defects of my age. Now, I understand that
I ought not to have tried to see you," he added; "but, at the same
time, the desire was a very natural one"--and, making an appeal to
feeling rather than to the intellect, he described the weariness of
his enforced exile. He drew a portrait of a young man in whom the
fires of life were burning themselves out, conveying the impression
that here was a heart worthy of tender love, a heart which,
notwithstanding, had never known the joys of love for a young and
beautiful woman of refinement and taste. He explained, without
attempting to justify, his unusual conduct. He flattered Mme. de
Beauseant by showing that she had realized for him the ideal lady of a
young man's dream, the ideal sought by so many, and so often sought in
vain. Then he touched upon his morning prowlings under the walls of
Courcelles, and his wild thoughts at the first sight of the house,
till he excited that vague feeling of indulgence which a woman can
find in her heart for the follies committed for her sake.

An impassioned voice was speaking in the chill solitude; the speaker
brought with him a warm breath of youth and the charms of a carefully
cultivated mind. It was so long since Mme. de Beauseant had felt
stirred by real feeling delicately expressed, that it affected her