My wits had returned to me wholly; and as he repeated “No love for you--no love for you,” I had the intuition that what influenced him was his love for Seraphina. I saw it. I read it in the workings of his face. His eyes retained his good-humoured twinkle. He did not attach any importance to a boy-and-girl affair; not at all--pah! The lady, naturally young, warmhearted, full of kindness. I mustn’t think.... Ha, ha! A man of his age, of course, understood.... No importance at all. He walked away from the table trying to snap his fingers, and, suddenly, he reeled; he reeled, as though he had been overcome by the poison of his jealousy--as though a thought had stabbed him to the heart. There was an instant when the sight of that man moved me more than anything I had seen of passionate suffering before (and that was nothing), or since. He longed to kill me--I felt it in the very air of the room; and he loved her too much to dare. He laughed at me across the table. I had ridiculously misunderstood a very proper and natural kindness of a girl with not much worldly experience. He had known her from the earliest childhood. “Take my word for it,” he stammered. It seemed to me that there were tears in his eyes. A stiff smile was parting his lips. He took up the pistol, and evidently not knowing anything about it, looked with an air of curiosity into the barrel. It was time to think of making my career. That’s what I ought to be thinking of at my age. “At your age--at your age,” he repeated aimlessly. I was an Englishman. He hated me--and it was easy to believe this, though he neither glared nor grimaced. He smiled. He smiled continuously and rather pitifully. But his devotion to a--a--person who.... His devotion was great enough to overcome even that, even that. Did I understand? I owed it to the lady’s regard, which, for the rest, I had misunderstood--stupidly misunderstood. “Well, at your age it’s excusable!” he mumbled. “A career that...” “I see,” I said slowly. Young as I was, it was impossible to mistake his motives. Only a man of mature years, and really possessed by a great passion--by a passion that had grown slowly, till it was exactly as big as his soul--could have acted like this--with that profound simplicity, with such resignation, with such horrible moderation--But I wanted to find out more. “And when would you want me to go?” I asked, with a dissimulation of which I would not have suspected myself capable a moment before. I was maturing in the fire of love, of danger; in the lurid light of life piercing through my youthful innocence. “Ah,” he said, banging the pistol on to the table hurriedly. “At once. To-night. Now.” “Without seeing anybody?” “Without seeing... Oh, of course. In your own interest.”