"No, or I should scarcely ask your advice. If it were, my daughter would be more at ease. Her misgivings disturb her, and then..." Mme. Laroque sank back into the shadow of the hood over her chair and added: "Have _you_ any idea of what is going on in that unfortunate head?" "None, madame." She fixed her sparkling eyes on me for a moment, sighed deeply, and said, gently and sadly: "You may go ... I won’t detain you any longer." The confidence with which I had just been honoured, had not surprised me much. For some time it had been evident that Mlle. Marguerite reserved for M. de Bévallan whatever sympathy she had left for humanity. But she seemed to show rather a friendly preference than an impassioned tenderness. And I ought to say that the preference was quite intelligible. I have never liked M. de Bévallan, and in these pages I have, in spite of myself, given a caricature rather than a portrait of him, but I admit that he combines most of the qualities and defects that are popular with women. He is absolutely devoid of modesty, which is a great advantage, as women do not like it. He has the cool, mocking, and witty assurance which nothing can daunt, which easily daunts others, and which gives to its possessor a kind of domination and a factitious superiority. His tall figure, his bold features, his skill in athletic exercises, his reputation as a sportsman, give him a manly authority which impresses the timid sex. And he has an air of daring, enterprise, and conquest which attracts and troubles women, and fills their souls with secret ardour. Such advantages, it is true, are, as a rule, chiefly impressive to vulgar natures; but though, as usual, I had at first been tempted to put Mlle. Marguerite’s nature on a level with her beauty, she had for some time past seemed to make a positive parade of very mediocre sentiments, and I believed she was capable of yielding without resistance as without enthusiasm, and with the passive coldness of a lifeless imagination, to the charms of a common-place lady-killer, and, later, to the yoke of a respectable marriage. AH this made it necessary for me to accept the inevitable, and I did so more easily than I should have thought possible a month ago. For I had summoned all my courage to combat the first temptations of a love, equally condemned by good sense and by honour. And she who had unwittingly imposed this combat on me, had also unwittingly powerfully helped me in my resistance. If she could not hide her beauty from me, she also unveiled her soul, and mine had recoiled. Small loss, no doubt, for the young millionaire, but a good thing for me.