He kept thinking of the story of that strange girl, her haughty frankness when unrolling certain phases of her life, of her wonderful impassibility, and of the implacable contempt for humanity which her every word betrayed. Where had she learned that dignity, so simple and so noble, that measured speech, that admirable respect of herself, which had enabled her to pass through so much filth without receiving a stain? “What a woman!” he thought. Before knowing her, he loved her. Now he was convulsed by one of those exclusive passions which master the whole being. Already he felt himself so much under the charm, subjugated, dominated, fascinated; he understood so well that he was going to cease being his own master; that his free will was about escaping from him; that he would be in Mlle. Lucienne’s hands like wax under the modeler’s fingers; he saw himself so thoroughly at the discretion of an energy superior to his own, that he was almost frightened. “It’s my whole future that I am going to risk,” he thought. And there was no middle path. Either he must fly at once, without waiting for Mlle. Lucienne to awake, fly without looking behind, or else stay, and then accept all the chances of an incurable passion for a woman who, perhaps, might never care for him. And he remained wavering, like the traveler who finds himself at the intersection of two roads, and, knowing that one leads to the goal, and the other to an abyss, hesitates which to take. With this difference, however, that if the traveler errs, and discovers his error, he is always free to retrace his steps; whereas man, in life, can never return to his starting-point. Every step he takes is final; and if he has erred, if he has taken the fatal road, there is no remedy. “Well, no matter!” exclaimed Maxence. “It shall not be said that through cowardice I have allowed that happiness to escape which passes within my reach. I shall stay.” And at once he began to examine what reasonably he might expect; for there was no mistaking Mlle. Lucienne’s intentions. When she had said, “Do you wish to be friends?” she had meant exactly that, and nothing else,--friends, and only friends. “And yet,” thought Maxence, “if I had not inspired her with a real interest, would she have so wholly confided unto me? She is not ignorant of the fact that I love her; and she knows life too well to suppose that I will cease to love her when she has allowed me a certain amount of intimacy.” His heart filled with hope at the idea. “My mistress,” he thought, “never, evidently, but my wife. Why not?”