metal is chosen for coinage, then gold will be reduced once again to mere glitter.
To-day you have stamped Marie as the one woman of your life—but dare you be sure that you won't value her once more to-morrow as you valued her but yesterday: a pretty toy, a moment's pleasure, a passing summer day?
What is there to prove that you won't!
LVIIt is the last night, our last night. In a few hours' time Marie will go abroad to visit an aunt, and when she returns it will be to get married. I shall not see her again—she is another man's wife. If everything had been as in the old days, in the beginning of our friendship, I am sure her marriage would not have parted us. It would only have inflamed the more my passion for conquest. But now neither conquest nor booty from foreign coasts tempt me any longer. I have no wish to disturb another man's happiness and peace. My faith in happiness and all my pride are broken. Even were I again to hold happiness in my hand, I would not dare to believe in it, would not dare to hold it fast.
——It was night. All round us was solemn quiet. We lay hand in hand, each filled with our own thoughts, and staring open-eyed into the darkness. Your little warm hand, Marie, rested so cautiously in mine, it did not move at all, as if it feared to break the silence. It seemed to me as though we flew on great silent wings through space,
