Page:The Vicomte de Bragelonne 2.djvu/370

358 would have quitted everything to fall at your feet, as I do at this moment."

"Are we quite alone, monsieur?" asked the marquise, looking round the room,

"Oh, yes, madame, I can assure you of that."

"Really?" said the marquise, in a melancholy tone.

"You sigh," said Fouquet.

"What mysteries! what precautions!" said the marquise, with a slight bitterness of expression; "and how evident it is that you fear the least suspicion of your amours to escape."

"Would you prefer their being made public?"

"Oh, no; you act like a delicate man," said the marquise, smiling.

"Come, dear marquise, punish me not with reproaches, I implore you."

"Reproaches! Have I a right to make you any?"

"No, unfortunately, no; but tell me, you, who during a year I have loved without return or hope "

"You are mistaken—without hope, it is true, but not without return."

"What! for me, to my love? there is but one proof, and that proof I still want."

"I am come to bring it to you, monsieur."

Fouquet wished to clasp her in his arms, but she disengaged herself with a gesture.

"You persist in deceiving yourself, monsieur, and never will accept of me the only thing I am willing to give you—devotion."

"Ah, then, you do not love me? Devotion is but a virtue, love is a passion."

"Listen to me, I implore you; I should not have come hither without a serious motive; you are well assured of that, are you not?"

"The motive is of very little consequence, so that you are but here—so that I see you—so that I speak to you!"

"You are right; the principal thing is that I am here without any one having seen me, and that I can speak to you."

Fouquet sank on his knees before her. "Speak, speak, madame!" said he. "I listen to you."

The marquise looked at Fouquet on his knees at her feet, and there was in the looks of the woman a strange mixture of love and melancholy.

"Oh!" at length murmured she, "would that I were she