Mme. de Beauseant was eloquent and beautiful at that moment; nay,
"coquettish," if the word were not too heavy. By justifying herself
and love, she was stimulating every sentiment in the man before her;
nay, more, the higher she set the goal, the more conspicuous it grew.
At last, when her eyes had lost the too eloquent expression given to
them by painful memories, she let them fall on Gaston.

"You acknowledge, do you not, that I am bound to lead a solitary,
self-contained life?" she said quietly.

So sublime was she in her reasoning and her madness, that M. de Nueil
felt a wild longing to throw himself at her feet; but he was afraid of
making himself ridiculous, so he held his enthusiasm and his thoughts
in check. He was afraid, too, that he might totally fail to express
them, and in no less terror of some awful rejection on her part, or of
her mockery, an apprehension which strikes like ice to the most fervid
soul. The revulsion which led him to crush down every feeling as it
sprang up in his heart cost him the intense pain that diffident and
ambitious natures experience in the frequent crises when they are
compelled to stifle their longings. And yet, in spite of himself, he
broke the silence to say in a faltering voice:

"Madame, permit me to give way to one of the strongest emotions of my
life, and own to all that you have made me feel. You set the heart in
me swelling high! I feel within me a longing to make you forget your
mortifications, to devote my life to this, to give you love for all
who ever have given you wounds or hate. But this is a very sudden
outpouring of the heart, nothing can justify it to-day, and I ought
not----"