"For what purpose? What should I do with the frame without the picture? The adored being, where is he, oh! my master?" "It is true!" cried the notary, bitterly. "I am old. I am ugly. I can only inspire disgust and aversion; she loads me with contempt; she scoffs at me, and I have not the strength to drive her away. I have only strength to suffer." "Oh! the insupportable _cry-baby_; oh! the silly, with his complaints," cried Cecily, in a sardonic and contemptuous tone; he does nothing but groan and lament, and has been for ten days shut up alone with a young woman, in a deserted house." "But this woman despises me--is armed--is locked!" cried the notary in a rage. "Well! overcome the disdain of this woman; cause the dagger to fall from her hand; constrain her to open this door, which separates you from her; and that not by brutal force, which would fail." "And how then?" "By the force of your passion." "Passion! and how can I inspire it?" "Stop, you are but a notary bound up with a sexton; you make me pity you. Am I to teach you your part? You are ugly; be terrible, your ugliness will be forgotten. You are old; be energetic, your age will be overlooked. You are repulsive; be threatening. Since you cannot be the noble horse, who neighs proudly in the midst of his wives, be not, at least, the stupid camel, who bends the knee and crooks the back; be a tiger. An old tiger, who roars in the midst of carnage, has also its beauty; his tigress answers him from the depths of the desert." At this language, which was not without a sort of bold natural eloquence, Jacques Ferrard shuddered, at the savage and almost ferocious expression of the face of Cecily, who, with heaving bosom, expanded nostril, haughty mouth, fixed on him her large black and burning eyes. Never had she appeared so lovely. "Speak, speak again!" cried he, passionately; "you speak seriously this time. Oh! if I could----" "One can do what one wishes," said Cecily, abruptly. "But----" "But I tell you that if you wish, repulsive as you are----" "Yes, I will do it! Try me, try me!" cried Jacques Ferrand, more and more excited. Cecily continued, approaching nearer, and fixing on the notary a penetrating look, "For a woman loving a handsome youth would know," resumed the Creole, "that she would have an exorbitant caprice to satisfy; that the boys would look at their money if they had any, or, if they had none, to a mean trick, while the old tiger----" "Would regard nothing, do you understand? nothing. Fortune, honor, he would know how to sacrifice all he would!" "True," said Cecily, placing her charming fingers on the bony and hairy hands of Jacques Ferrand, who, for the first time, touched the soft and velvety skin of the Creole. He became still paler, and uttered a hoarse sigh. "How this woman would be beloved," added Cecily, "had she an enemy, whom, pointing out to her old tiger, she would say strike, and--"