They were silent. He looked at her. She had in her glance something of tenderness, of weakness; and suddenly she raised both her arms, as if she would draw him to her; he bent over her, feeling that she called him, and their lips met.
For a long time they remained thus, their eyes closed.
But, knowing that he would lose his head, he drew away. She smiled at him now, most tenderly; and, with both her hands clinging to his shoulders, she held him.
"I am going to call your mother," he said.
She murmured: "Just a second more. I am so happy."
Then after a silence, she said in a tone so low that it could scarcely be heard: "Will you love me very much? Tell me!"
He kneeled beside her bed, and kissing the hand she had given him, said: "I adore you." But some one was walking near the door. He arose with a bound, and called in his ordinary voice, which seemed nevertheless a little ironical: "You may come in. It is all right now."
The Marquise threw herself on her daughter, with both arms open, and clasped her frantically, covering her countenance with tears, while Servigny with radiant soul and quivering body went out upon the balcony to breathe the fresh air of the night, humming to himself the old couplet:
"A woman changeth oft her mind:
Yet fools still trust in womankind."