to speak in certain terms; to ... to allude to certain hopes with which you honour me."
He looked at her almost in fear. In silence, not daring to speak, he waited for her to continue.
"I ... I ... Will you please to understand, monsieur, that if you persist in this matter, if ... unless you can break this engagement of yours to-morrow morning in the Bois, you are not to presume to mention this subject to me again, or, indeed, ever again to approach me."
To put the matter in this negative way was as far as she could possibly go. It was for him to make the positive proposal to which she had thus thrown wide the door.
"Mademoiselle, you cannot mean..."
"I do, monsieur ... irrevocably, please to understand." He looked at her with eyes of misery, his handsome, manly face as pale as she had ever seen it. The hand he had been holding out in protest began to shake. He lowered it to his side again, lest she should perceive its tremor. Thus a brief second, while the battle was fought within him, the bitter engagement between his desires and what he conceived to be the demands of his honour, never perceiving how far his honour was buttressed by implacable vindictiveness. Retreat, he conceived, was impossible without shame; and shame was to him an agony unthinkable. She asked too much. She could not understand what she was asking, else she would never be so unreasonable, so unjust. But also he saw that it would be futile to attempt to make her understand.
It was the end. Though he kill André-Louis Moreau in the morning as he fiercely hoped he would, yet the victory even in death must lie with André-Louis Moreau.
He bowed profoundly, grave and sorrowful of face as he was grave and sorrowful of heart.
"Mademoiselle, my homage," he murmured, and turned to go.
