“Now,” I said, stung beyond endurance by her words, “I pronounce you, mademoiselle, the most soulless, as you are the most beautiful, woman I have ever encountered. I thought I loved you with that reverence that would subscribe to the very conditions that Laban imposed upon Jacob. I see I was mistaken, and that I would have bartered my gold for a baser metal. And now, also, I see, mademoiselle, that the callousness you displayed in presence of the murdered Lepelletier, which I had fain fancied was a paralysis of nerve, was due in effect to nothing less vulgar than an unfeeling heart!” She stared at me in amazement, it seemed. I was for the moment carried quite beyond myself. “I will leave you,” I cried, “to your better reflections--or, at least, to your better judgment. This Thibaut will walk off the high fever of his presumption, and return presently, your faithful and obedient servant.” I turned, fuming, upon my heel, and strode off amongst the trees. I had not gone a dozen paces when her voice stayed me. I twisted myself about. “Do not lift your head so high, monsieur,” she said, “or you will run it against a mushroom and hurt yourself.” * * * * * * * Insolent--cruel--fascinating! For what had I indulged this mood of quixotry--for what permitted this intolerable child to gall my sides with her disdain? Would it have been thus had I condescended to drive her coquetry to bay with that toothless dog of my rank? Ah! I believe so; and that only made the sting of her contempt the more poisonous. It was my person that could not suffice; and truly there is no bribe to a woman’s favour like an extra inch of weediness. She is the escapement of the heart; but the reason she will never move till she acquire a sense of proportion. She was designed but to put man out of conceit with himself, and I think she was not formed of his rib but of his spleen. Therefore the tap-root of her nature is grievance, from which her every leaf and flower and knot and canker takes its sustenance of misconstruction. She may bloom very fair and sweet; but then so does the dulcamara, and to taste either is dangerous. Thinking these thoughts, I postponed my return to the little glade where I had left Carinne. She should believe me gone for good and all, I vowed, and so should she suffer the first pangs of desertion. Then, though she wished to make me feel small, no giant should figure so great in her eyes as the moderate Thibaut. At last, in the early glow of evening, the unquenchable yearning in my heart would brook no longer delay. Half-shamefaced, half-stubborn, I retraced my steps to the glen that held my all of aggravation and of desire.