themselves eagerly on the words. Had she not always warned him that
there was nothing so misleading as their plainness? And might it not
be that, in spite of his advisedness, he had suffered too easy a
rebuff? But second thoughts reminded him that the refusal had not
been as unconditional as his necessary reservations made it seem in
the repetition; and that, furthermore, it was his own act, and not
that of his opponents, which had determined it. The impossibility of
revealing this to Madame de Malrive only made the difficulty shut in
more darkly around him, and in the completeness of his
discouragement he scarcely needed her reminder of his promise to
regard the subject as closed when once the other side had defined
its position.

He was secretly confirmed in this acceptance of his fate by the
knowledge that it was really he who had defined the position. Even
now that he was alone with Madame de Malrive, and subtly aware of
the struggle under her composure, he felt no temptation to abate his
stand by a jot. He had not yet formulated a reason for his
resistance: he simply went on feeling, more and more strongly with
every precious sign of her participation in his unhappiness, that he
could neither owe his escape from it to such a transaction, nor
suffer her, innocently, to owe hers.

The only mitigating effect of his determination was in an increase
of helpless tenderness toward her; so that, when she exclaimed, in
answer to his announcement that he meant to leave Paris the next
night: "Oh, give me a day or two longer!" he at once resigned
himself to saying: "If I can be of the least use, I'll give you a
hundred."