How many pleasant hours they had passed together here! He seemed to see
Blanche again, as she was then, radiant with youth, gay and laughing.
Her naivete was affected, perhaps, but was it any the less charming on
that account?
At this very moment Blanche entered the room. She looked so careworn
and sad that he scarcely knew her. His heart was touched by the look of
patient sorrow imprinted upon her features.
"How much you must have suffered, Blanche," he murmured, scarcely
knowing what he said.
It cost her an effort to repress her secret joy. She saw that he knew
nothing of her crime. She noticed his emotion, and saw the profit she
could derive from it.
"I can never cease to regret having displeased you," she replied, humbly
and sadly. "I shall never be consoled."
She had touched the vulnerable spot in every man's heart.
For there is no man so sceptical, so cold, or so _blase_ that his vanity
is not pleased with the thought that a woman is dying for his sake.
There is no man who is not moved by this most delicious flattery,
and who is not ready and willing to give, at least, a tender pity in
exchange for such devotion.
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