“It is already melted in your arms. O, love! am I not a villain?” “If you are, I love a villain.” “Isabel?” “My dear lord?” “Think always well of that other.” “I obey my lord.” “He is a noble heart--princely, magnanimous. He deserves you more than I.” “Well, he has his deserts to keep him.” “His claim was open, palpable: mine, only visionary.” “I will think well of him--when I think of him. Look, when you turn that way, the stars make little babies in your eyes.” “Isabel, if it were not I, I think I could say, Make _him_ happy.” “What do you mean, if it were not you? O, God! what have I done to forfeit my love?” “To _forfeit_, child?” “Have I been too forward, too complying--cheapening in myself the thing you held so dear? Will you give me to him, as one having too easily betrayed her easy nature? I am not like that--not fickle--indeed, indeed I am not. I will be cold, forbidding, if it please you; more maidenly; chary of my favours; no smiles, no kisses--Ah, no, I cannot! It is too late. In pity do not despise and cast me off!” “You very woman! Come, bend lower. Give me your lips, I say.” “How can I help it when you bid me?” “My gentle slave! What reprisals your fond loveliness does invite! I could almost wound you just to taste that lust of dear submission. And yet, I did not mean to wound you, girl; but only to say, were I to die, atone as best you can.” “As best I can, then. Shall I promise to marry him?” “Promise what you like.” “Ah! now I hear you set your teeth, as if clinched on some secret pain. And I am happy once more. If you were to die, did you say?” “Yes, my own love.” “Look! you cannot forbear the truth. Give him the empty husk, you mean, so long as the sweet kernel remains your own. You called me your own love.” “Are you not?” “By every fibre of my soul that clings to yours. How could I live, then, if you were dead?” “Make room. I must come up to you again.” “No, no--you shall not. I am content at last in everything but your safety. Hush--O, hush! What was that noise?” “I heard none. Where is Fanchette?” “She is waiting within to take you to the gate. Stop, while I fetch her.” “Not yet. Let me listen at your heart. Child, how it beats.” “It is your own caged bird. It beats to get at you.” “Come into my hand, dear bird, and lie warm and rest. There is a long flight waits you on the morrow.” “O, I die to think of it!” “What?--of fear or rapture?” “Of rapture that is fear. Listen--Bonbec!” “It is midnight striking--the hour of sweet augury. You will not fail me, will you, by a minute--here, at the window?” “I will put the clock forward.” “If we can reach the mountains, and thence make by way of Zurich across the German border, and so northward.” “To the wild green gardens! O, heaven speed us!” “Never doubt it will. Think of my mascot.” “What mascot?” “That to which I owe my immortality--Cinderella’s slipper.”