Scott, and Byron.  The noble creature regarded her love as a stimulating power; the desire which she had kindled in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for himself.  This feminine Quixotry is a sentiment which hallows love and turns it to worthy uses; it exalts and reverences love.  Mme. de Bargeton having made up her mind to play the part of Dulcinea in Lucien’s life for seven or eight years to come, desired, like many other provincials, to give herself as the reward of prolonged service, a trial of constancy which should give her time to judge her lover.

Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a woman laughs so long as she is heart-free, and saddens only when she loves; whereupon Louise took a lofty tone, and began one of her long orations, interlarded with high-sounding words.

“Was that your promise to me, Lucien?” she said, as she made an end.  “Do not sow regrets in the present time, so sweet as it is, to poison my after life.  Do not spoil the future, and, I say it with pride, do not spoil the present!  Is not my whole heart yours?  What more must you have?  Can it be that your love is influenced by the clamor of the senses, when it is the noblest privilege of the beloved to silence them?  For whom do you take me?  Am I not your Beatrice?  If I am not something more than a woman for you, I am less than a woman.”

“That is just what you might say to a man if you cared nothing at all for him,” cried Lucien, frantic with passion.

“If you cannot feel all the sincere love underlying my ideas, you will never be worthy of me.”

“You are throwing doubts on my love to dispense yourself from responding to it,” cried Lucien, and he flung himself weeping at her feet.

The poor boy cried in earnest at the prospect of remaining so long at the gate of paradise.  The tears of the poet, who feels that he is humbled through his strength, were mingled with childish crying for a plaything.

“You have never loved me!” he cried.

“You do not believe what you say,” she answered, flattered by his violence.

“Then give me proof that you are mine,” said the disheveled poet.

Just at that moment Stanislas came up unheard by either of the pair.  He beheld Lucien in tears, half reclining on the floor, with his head on Louise’s knee.  The attitude was suspicious enough to satisfy Stanislas; he turned sharply round upon Chatelet, who stood at the door of the salon.  Mme. de Bargeton sprang up in a moment, but the spies beat a precipate retreat like intruders, and she was not quick enough for them.

“Who came just now?” she asked the servants.

“M. de Chandour and M. du Chatelet,” said Gentil, her old footman.

Mme. de Bargeton went back, pale and trembling, to her boudoir.

“If they saw you just now, I am lost,” she told Lucien.

“So much the better!” exclaimed the poet, and she smiled to hear the cry, so full of selfish love.