each; she took them, opened them languidly, and after reading them
through she gave me only a look as my reward. She fully understood
that I was not offering her money, but freedom.

"'"I am conquered," said she, holding out her hand, which I kissed.
"Come and see me as often as you like."

"'So she had done herself a violence in receiving me. Next day I
found her armed with affected high spirits, and it took two months of
habit before I saw her in her true character. But then it was like a
delicious May, a springtime of love that gave me ineffable bliss; she
was no longer afraid; she was studying me. Alas! when I proposed that
she should go to England to return ostensibly to me, to our home, that
she should resume her rank and live in our new residence, she was
seized with alarm.

"'"Why not live always as we are?" she said.

"'I submitted without saying a word.

"'"Is she making an experiment?" I asked myself as I left her. On my
way from my own house to the Rue Saint-Maur thoughts of love had
swelled in my heart, and I had said to myself, like a young man, "This
evening she will yield."

"'All my real or affected force was blown to the winds by a smile, by
a command from those proud, calm eyes, untouched by passion. I
remembered the terrible words you once quoted to me, "Lucretia's
dagger wrote in letters of blood the watchword of woman's charter
--Liberty!" and they froze me. I felt imperatively how necessary to me