"It _is_ all!" he declared. He slipped both her cold hands into his right hand and put his freed arm about her waist. "Vitoria," he whispered, drawing her to him, "it _is_ all. It's all that matters, all that counts. It can mock all custom and defy all law. I love you, Vitoria." Slowly her eyes closed; slowly she sank against his arm; slowly her head drooped backward, and slowly he bent toward its parted, unresisting lips---- "And love's the one thing in the world worth living and dying for." At that word, she came to sudden life. With one wrench, she had darted from his arms. Instantly she had recovered self-control. "No, no, no!" she cried. "Go away! There is danger here. Oh, go away!" The suddenness of her action shattered his delirium. He read in her words only her reply to the question that he had put to her. Impossible as it would have seemed a moment since, that negative meant a catastrophic denial of any love for him. He glanced at the old walls that surrounded them--at all the expressions of a remorseless self in which he could have no part. He felt, with a sudden certainty, that these things were of her, and she of them--that what she meant by her distinction between herself in Paris and this other self here was the vast difference between a Byzantine empress breaking plebeian hearts in the alleys of her capital and that same woman on her throne, passionless and raised above the reach of men's desires. The most modest of young fellows is always a little vain, and his vanity is always wounded; it is ever seeking hurts, anxious to suffer: Cartaret was no exception to human rules. He told his heart that Vitoria's words meant but one thing: She had entertained herself with him during an incognito escapade and, now that the escapade was finished, wanted no reminders. A Byzantine empress? This was worse: the empress gave, if only to take away. What Vitoria must mean was that even her momentary softening toward him on this spot was no more than momentary. She was saying that, having had her amusement by making him love her, she was now returned to her proper station, where to love her was to insult her. He had been her plaything, and now she was tired of it.