And I shall take his advice.
Look up into my face, dear angel, and defy me to take his advice."
Happily the dear angel looked only downwards. But M Lenoble was resolved
to have an agreeable response.
"See, then, thou canst not defy me!" he cried, in the only language he
spoke; and the "_tu_" for the first time sounded very tender, very sweet.
"Thou canst not tell me thou art angry with me. And the other--the
imbecile;--he is gone for ever, is he not? Ah, say yes!"
"Yes, he is gone," said Diana, almost in a whisper.
"Is he quite gone? The door of thine heart locked against him, his
luggage thrown out of the window?"
"He is gone!" she murmured softly. "He could not hold his place against
you--you are so strong--so brave; and he was only a shadow. Yes, he is
gone."
She said this with a little sigh of relief. It was in all sincerity that
she answered her suitor's question. She felt that a crisis had come in
her life--the first page of a new volume; and the old sad tear-blotted
book might be cast away.
"Dear angel, wilt thou ever learn to love me?" asked Gustave, in a
half-whisper, bending down his bearded face till his lips almost touched
her cheek.
"It is impossible not to love you," she answered softly. And indeed it
seemed to her as if this chivalrous Gaul was a creature to command the
love of women, the fear of men; an Achilles _en frac_; a Bayard without
his coat of mail; Don Quixote in his youth, generous, brave,
compassionate, tender, and with a brain not as yet distempered by the
reading of silly romances.
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