"I have only one thing to say," he cried, raising his hand to stay me. I gave way, breathing hard. "What is it?" I said. "That you make love like a bourgeois!" he answered, laughing insolently. "Or a mad Englishman! And as Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not a baker's daughter, to be wooed after that fashion, I find it offensive. Is that enough or shall I say more, M. le Vicomte?" "That will not be enough to turn me from my path!" I answered. "You forget that I carried Mademoiselle hither in my arms last night. But I do not forget it, and she will not forget it. We cannot be henceforth as we were, M. le Marquis." "You saved her life and base a claim upon it?" he said scornfully. "That is generous and like a gentleman!" "No, I do not!" I answered passionately. "But I have held Mademoiselle in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her, and I shall win her." "While I live you never shall!" he answered fiercely. "I swear that, as she trod on that ribbon--at my word, at my word, Monsieur!--so she shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you." I trembled with rage. "You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!" I said. "Nor I you," he answered. "I know it. Therefore," he continued, pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former politeness, "I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur--I do not say, until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in future." I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved' away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing. Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished in my sister's case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!