“But consider, my friend;” and she leaned forward in her earnestness until she almost touched me, until the sweet glow of her body penetrated to me. “You have known me only a few hours. I am the first woman you have met on riding forth into the world. You mistake a goose for a swan. I assure you that there are many women beside whom you would not give me a second glance. Indeed, it is very possible that your betrothed may be one of them. So you will soon recover from this madness; in a day or two it will have quite passed away. The path of honor leads you to Poitiers and there you will find happiness as well. In time you will come to wonder at this night’s emotion, and to laugh at it. You will look back and you will say to yourself, ‘What a fool I was!’” “It is true,” I said slowly, “that I may be a fool in desiring what I can never hope to possess; but at least, mademoiselle, do me the justice to believe that I shall never cease to desire it. I do not know how to tell you, for I have no skill in the phrases of love. I only know that you have touched in me a chord which will never cease to beat until the heart itself is still. It is not your beauty, though you are very beautiful; it is not the tone of your voice, though that is very sweet; it is not your smile, though that drives me to madness. It is something beyond and behind all that; it is something which for want of a better name I call your soul--that which looks out of your eyes so clear and pure that I tremble before it, knowing my own unworthiness. It is your soul that I love, mademoiselle, and no lapse of time, no chance of fortune--nothing in earth or heaven--can alter that love one atom.” I have heard that love gives eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, a tongue to the dumb. I know that at that moment, as my heart burned within me and the words rushed unbidden to my lips, the world appeared a small and trivial thing, with nothing worthy in it save me and this woman and the love I had for her. I have no words to describe the emotion which shook me, the passion which flowed in my veins and took possession of my being. It was as if a sudden miracle had been wrought in me, a sublimation of everything unworthy; it was as though I had climbed a mountain peak and come out under the clear stars, in the thin pure air, with nothing between myself and God. I have never again reached a height quite so sublime, or experienced a bliss quite so poignant. I was too blinded for the moment by my own emotion to see my companion clearly; only her starry eyes I saw, and her parted lips, and her clasped hands. Then she drew away from me and seemed to shake herself as though awaking from a dream; and a cold breath blew upon me, and I, too, awoke. The spell was broken, the vision ended, the glorious moment gone.