She staggered, and appeared as if about to fall; the baron sprang toward her to offer his support, but he had scarcely touched her when a flush of crimson suffused the cheeks of the young girl, and with a feeling, which might be attributed as well to modesty as to repugnance, she disengaged herself from his arms. Lectoure had taken her hand, and conducted her to a chair, against which she leaned, but would not seat herself in it. “Good God!” exclaimed the baron, still retaining her hand, “it must then be something very difficult to utter, that has brought you hither! Or, without my at all suspecting it, has my being affianced to you already conferred upon me the imposing air of a husband?” Marguerite made another effort to withdraw her hand from the baron, and which induced the latter to observe it. “How!” said he, “not satisfied with having the most adorable of faces, the elegant figure of a fairy, but you must have such lovely hands!--hands perfectly royal in their shape--why, ‘tis enough to make me expire at once.” “I trust M. le Baron,” rejoined Marguerite, and making a last effort, she withdrew her hand from his grasp, “that the words with which you are now addressing me, are merely words of gallantry.” “No, by my soul! they are the sincere truth.” “Well then, I hope, should it be, which I much doubt, that you really think that which you have been pleased to say--I trust, I say, that such motives will not lead you to attach a higher value to the union which has been projected?” “They will, indeed, and that I swear to you.” “And yet,” continued Marguerite, gasping for breath, so much was her heart oppressed, “and yet, sir, you consider marriage as a solemn matter?” “That is as it may happen,” smilingly replied Lectoure; “for example, if I were about to marry an old dowager.” “In short,” rejoined Marguerite, in a more determined tone, “I beg your pardon, sir, if I have been mistaken; I thought, perhaps, that with regard to the alliance proposed between us, you had formed some idea of reciprocity of feeling.” “Never!” cried Lectoure, interrupting her, for he appeared as eager to avoid the frank explanation, which Marguerite desired, as she seemed to provoke it. “Never! and above all, since I have seen you, I could not hope to be worthy of your love. And yet my name, my position in society, notwithstanding I should fail to influence your heart, may yet give me a title to your hand.” “But how, sir,” said Marguerite, timidly, “how can you separate the one from the other?” “As do three-fourths of the people who get married, mademoiselle,” replied Lectoure, with a carelessness which would have at once deterred the confidence of a woman less candid than Marguerite. “A man marries in order to have a wife, the wife to have a husband; it is a social compact, an arrangement of convenience. What can love have to do in a matter of this nature?”