Dieu! It was like a thrust in the high lines, and its hurtful
violence staggered me. I was finished, it seemed. The victory was
hers, and she but a child with no practice of Cupid's art of fence!

"Now, monsieur," she added, "now that you are satisfied that you
did wrong to say I loved you, now that we have disposed of that
question - adieu!"

"A moment yet!" I cried. "We have disposed of that, but there was
another point, an earlier one, which for the moment we have
disregarded. We have - you have disproved the love I was so
presumptuous as to believe you fostered for me. We have yet to
reckon with the love I bear you, mademoiselle, and of that we shall
not be able to dispose so readily."

With a gesture of weariness or of impatience, she turned aside.
"What is it you want? What do you seek to gain by thus provoking
me? To win your wager?" Her voice was cold. Who to have looked
upon that childlike face, upon those meek, pondering eyes, could
have believed her capable of so much cruelty?

"There can no longer be any question of my wager; I have lost and
paid it," said I.

She looked up suddenly. Her brows met in a frown of bewilderment.
Clearly this interested her. Again was she drawn.

"How?" she asked. "You have lost and paid it?"