"You have as good manners as my mother had. You need not fear comparison
with any lady in the land. Have I not known you all your life? I know
the way you have come, and your birth is as good as mine."

"Ah, it is not that, Monsieur!"

"I give you my word that I do not come to you because no one else would
have me," he said with a curious simplicity. "I never asked a woman to
marry me--never! You are the first. There was talk once--but it was all
false. I never meant to ask any one to marry me. But I have the wish
now which I never had in my youth. I thought best of myself always; now,
I think--I think better of you than--"

"Oh, Monsieur, I beg of you, no more! I cannot; oh, I cannot--"

"You--but no; I will not ask you, Mademoiselle. If you have some one
else in your heart, or want some one else there, that is your affair, not
mine--undoubtedly. I would have tried to make you happy; you would have
had peace and comfort all your life; you could have trusted me--but there
it is. . . ." He felt all at once that he was unfair to her, that he
had thrust upon her too hard a problem in too troubled an hour.

"I could trust you with my life, Monsieur Rossignol," she replied. "And
I love you in a way that a man may be loved to no one's harm or sorrow:
it is true that!" She raised her eyes to his simply, trustingly.

He looked at her steadily for a moment. "If you change your mind--"

She shook her head sadly.