Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/311

298 have taken the surest way—if that was your object of creating an impassable gulf between me and a lady for whom I have the greatest—friendship and regard. Whatever you may choose to believe, no word of love has ever passed my lips to her—and assuredly now none ever will. But if I imitated your example, and betrayed you, Monsieur Melchior, be assured her contempt for you would be equal to my own!"

His voice shook with suppressed rage. He turned his back on his visitor, and walked to the window. Melchior was, for the first time, impressed. He had looked on this as little more than a duel of wits, in which he had succeeded in wrenching the rapier from his antagonist. He now saw that what he thought was a scratch, not worth serious concern, was, in fact, a mortal wound. He was surprised; he had even a tinge of compunction. It was so odd that a man should feel in that sort of way! Instead of gratified vanity, he had aroused a sensitive pride past the Jew's comprehension. He did not know how to deal with a factor so unlooked-for in any human computation. Not that it signified much to him. He was too clever to suppose that anything he could do now could alter the position of affairs as regarded himself. The girl was not to be won, even as a wife, by money. Let the painter say what he would, he loved her—that was clear to Melchior; but if compassion was the only sentiment that inspired her, and that hereafter her funds, from whatever source, ran short, the Jew felt there was yet a possibility that she might look to him.

He turned over these things in his mind as he arranged his cravat at the glass, and slowly put on his gauts de