“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, of my love! there is but one proof, and that proof I still want.”

“I am here to bring it, monsieur.”

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

“You persist in deceiving yourself, monsieur, and will never 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 who has the right of seeing you every minute, of speaking to you every instant! would that I were she who might watch over you, she who would have no need of mysterious springs to summon and cause to appear, like a sylph, the man she loves, to look at him for an hour, and then see him disappear in the darkness of a mystery, still more strange at his going out than at his coming in.  Oh! that would be to live like a happy woman!”

“Do you happen, marquise,” said Fouquet, smiling, “to be speaking of my wife?”

“Yes, certainly, of her I spoke.”

“Well, you need not envy her lot, marquise; of all the women with whom I have had any relations, Madame Fouquet is the one I see the least of, and who has the least intercourse with me.”

“At least, monsieur, she is not reduced to place, as I have done, her hand upon the ornament of a glass to call you to her; at least you do not reply to her by the mysterious, alarming sound of a bell, the spring of which comes from I don’t know where; at least you have not forbidden her to endeavor to discover the secret of these communications under pain of breaking off forever your connections with her, as you have forbidden all who come here before me, and who will come after me.”

“Dear marquise, how unjust you are, and how little do you know what you are doing in thus exclaiming against mystery; it is with mystery alone we can love without trouble; it is with love without trouble alone that we can be happy.  But let us return to ourselves, to that devotion of which you were speaking, or rather let me labor under a pleasing delusion, and believe this devotion is love.”