'You!
yourself, you bid me look into my heart?'
'Do you suppose I fear?' she cried, and looked at him with such a
heightened colour, such bright eyes, and a smile of so abstruse a
meaning, that the Baron discarded his last doubt.
'Ah, madam!' he cried, plumping on his knees. 'Seraphina! Do you
permit me? have you divined my secret? It is true - I put my life
with joy into your power - I love you, love with ardour, as an
equal, as a mistress, as a brother-in-arms, as an adored, desired,
sweet-hearted woman. O Bride!' he cried, waxing dithyrambic, 'bride
of my reason and my senses, have pity, have pity on my love!'
She heard him with wonder, rage, and then contempt. His words
offended her to sickness; his appearance, as he grovelled bulkily
upon the floor, moved her to such laughter as we laugh in
nightmares.
'O shame!' she cried. 'Absurd and odious! What would the Countess
say?'
That great Baron Gondremark, the excellent politician, remained for
some little time upon his knees in a frame of mind which perhaps we
are allowed to pity. His vanity, within his iron bosom, bled and
raved. If he could have blotted all, if he could have withdrawn
part, if he had not called her bride - with a roaring in his ears,
he thus regretfully reviewed his declaration. He got to his feet
tottering; and then, in that first moment when a dumb agony finds a
vent in words, and the tongue betrays the inmost and worst of a man,
he permitted himself a retort which, for six weeks to follow, he was
to repent at leisure.
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