it, even as he flung himself upon his knees before her. "You may
take it indeed that I love - that I love you, Mademoiselle."

The audacious words being spoken, his courage oozed away and
anti-climax, followed. He paled and trembled, yet he knelt on until
she should bid him rise, and furtively he watched her face. He saw
it darken; he saw the brows knit; he noted the quickening breath,
and in all these signs he read his doom before she uttered it.

"Monsieur, monsieur," she answered him, and sad was her tone, "to
what lengths do you urge this springtime folly? Have you forgotten
so your station - yes, and mine - that because I talk with you and
laugh with you, and am kind to you, you must presume to speak to me
in this fashion? What answer shall I make you, Monsieur - for I am
not so cruel that I can answer you as you deserve."

An odd thing indeed was La Boulaye's courage. An instant ago he had
felt a very coward, and had quivered, appalled by the audacity of
his own words. Now that she assailed him thus, and taxed him with
that same audacity, the blood of anger rushed to his face - anger of
the quality that has its source in shame. In a second he was on his
feet before her, towering to the full of his lean height. The words
came from him in a hot stream, which for reckless passion by far
outvied his erstwhile amatory address.

"My station?" he cried, throwing wide his arms. "What fault lies
in my station? I am a secretary, a scholar, and so, by academic
right, a gentleman. Nay, Mademoiselle, never laugh; do not mock me
yet. In what do you find me less a man than any of the vapid
caperers that fill your father's salon? Is not my shape as good?