"Out of what, then, if not out of love?"
"Why, out of pity, my little gentleman!" she answered sharply. "And
trouble thrown away, it seems. Love!" And she laughed so merrily and
spontaneously it cut him to the heart. "No; but you said a dainty thing
or two, and smiled a smile; and like a fool, and like a woman, I was
sorry for the innocent calf that bleated so prettily on its way to the
butcher's! And I would lock you up, and save your life, I thought, until
the blood-letting was over. Now you have it, M. de Tignonville, and I
hope you like it."
Like it, when every word she uttered stripped him of the selfish
illusions in which he had wrapped himself against the blasts of
ill-fortune? Like it, when the prospect of her charms had bribed him
from the path of fortitude, when for her sake he had been false to his
mistress, to his friends, to his faith, to his cause? Like it, when he
knew as he listened that all was lost, and nothing gained, not even this
poor, unworthy, shameful compensation? Like it? No wonder that words
failed him, and he glared at her in rage, in misery, in shame.
"Oh, if you don't like it," she continued, tossing her head after a
momentary pause, "then you should not have come! It is of no profit to
glower at me, Monsieur. You do not frighten me.
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