Clotilde's father! Women were privileged to oppose their senselessness
to the divine fire: men could not retreat behind such defences; they must
meet him on the common ground of men, where this constant battler had
never yet encountered a reverse.

Clotilde's cold staring gaze, a little livelier to wonderment than to
reflection, observed him to be scrupulous of the formalities in the
diverse character of his parting salutations to her mother, her sister;
and the lady of the house. He was going--he could actually go and leave
her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that she
did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She saw him smiling
incomprehensibly, like a winner of the field to be left to the enemy.
She could get nothing from him but that insensible round smile, and she
took the ebbing of her poor effort for his rebuff.

'You that offered yourself in flight to him who once proposed it, he had
the choice of you and he abjured you. He has cast you off!'

She phrased it in speech to herself. It was incredible, but it was
clear: he had gone.

The room was vacant; the room was black and silent as a dungeon.

'He will not have you: he has handed you back to them the more readily to
renounce you.'

She framed the words half aloud in a moan as she glanced at her mother
heaving in stern triumph, her sister drooping, Madame Emerly standing at
the window.