'Oh, if I had met you before that! What a cruel fate that we should know each other only when there was no hope!' The man revealed himself in this dolorous sentimentality.

His wonted blitheness and facetiousness, his healthy features, his supple, well-built frame, suggested that when love awoke within him he would express it with virile force.

But he trembled and blushed like a young girl, and his accents fell at last into a melodious whining.
He raised the gloved fingers to his lips.

Monica bent her face away, deadly pale, with closed eyes.
'Are we to part to-day, and never again see each other ?' he went on.
'Say that you love me! Only say that you love me!' 'You despise me for coming to you like this.' 'Despise you ?' In a sudden rapture he folded his arms about her.
'Say that you love me!' He kissed away the last syllable of her whispered reply.
'Monica!--what is there before us?
How can I leave you ?' Yielding herself for the moment in a faintness that threatened to subdue her, she was yet able, when his caresses grew wild with passion, to put back his arms and move suddenly away.

He sprang up, and they stood speechless.