make the most of this opportunity, because I am not likely to get
another."

"But what remains of your opportunity, if it isn't one to me?"

"It still remains, for me, an occasion to abase myself--" He broke
off, conscious of a grossness of allusion that seemed, on a closer
approach, the real obstacle to full expression. But the moments were
flying, and for his self-esteem's sake he must find some way of
making her share the burden of his repentance.

"There is only one thinkable pretext for detaining you: it is that I
may still show my sense of what you have done for me."

Madame de Treymes, who had moved toward the door, paused at this and
faced him, resting her thin brown hands on a slender sofa-back.

"How do you propose to show that sense?" she enquired.

Durham coloured still more deeply: he saw that she was determined to
save her pride by making what he had to say of the utmost
difficulty. Well! he would let his expiation take that form,
then--it was as if her slender hands held out to him the fool's cap
he was condemned to press down on his own ears.

"By offering in return--in any form, and to the utmost--any service
you are forgiving enough to ask of me."

She received this with a low sound of laughter that scarcely rose to
her lips. "You are princely. But, my dear sir, does it not occur to