She shuddered, and in a hoarse voice, “I would rather die,” she said. It was difficult to reconcile words such as these with certain circumstances of Mlle. Lucienne’s existence,--her rides around the lake, for instance, in that carriage that came for her two or three times a week; her ever renewed costumes, each time more eccentric and more showy. But Maxence was not thinking of that. What she told him he accepted as absolutely true and indisputable. And he felt penetrated with an almost religious admiration for this young and beautiful girl, possessed of so much vivid energy, who alone, through the hazards, the perils, and the temptations of Paris, had succeeded in protecting and defending herself. “And yet,” he said, “without suspecting it, you had a friend near you.” She shuddered; and a pale smile flitted upon her lips. She knew well enough what friendship means between a youth of twenty-five and a girl of eighteen. “A friend!” she murmured. Maxence guessed her thought; and, in all the sincerity of his soul, “Yes, a friend,” he repeated, “a comrade, a brother.” And thinking to touch her, and gain her confidence, “I could understand you,” he added; “for I, too, have been very unhappy.” But he was singularly mistaken. She looked at him with an astonished air, and slowly, “You unhappy!” she uttered,--“you who have a family, relations, a mother who adores you, a sister.” Less excited, Maxence might have wondered how she had found this out, and would have concluded that she must feel some interest in him, since she had doubtless taken the trouble of getting information. “Besides, you are a man,” she went on; “and I do not understand how a man can complain. Have you not the freedom, the strength, and the right to undertake and to dare any thing? Isn’t the world open to your activity and to your ambition? Woman submits to her fate: man makes his.” This was hurting the dearest pretensions of Maxence, who seriously thought that he had exhausted the rigors of adversity. “There are circumstances,” he began. But she shrugged her shoulders gently, and, interrupting him, “Do not insist,” she said, “or else I might think that you lack energy. What are you talking of circumstances? There are none so adverse but that can be overcome. What would you like, then? To be born with a hundred thousand francs a year, and have nothing to do but to live according to your whim of each day, idle, satiated, a burden upon yourself, useless, or offensive to others? Ah! If I were a man, I would dream of another fate. I should like to start from the Foundling Asylum, without a name, and by my will, my intelligence, my daring, and my labor, make something and somebody of myself. I would start from nothing, and become every thing!” With flashing eyes and quivering nostrils, she drew herself up proudly. But almost at once, dropping her head, “The misfortune is,” she added, “that I am but a woman; and you who complain, if you only knew--”