"Why hasn't he moved? Because you're a woman, and also he'd believe you'd repent of your conduct. But I believe he will act sternly against you at once. There is much at stake."
"You want it for your own sake," said Luzanne sharply. "You think he'd marry you if I gave him up."
"Perhaps he'd ask me to marry him, if you weren't in the way, but I'd have my own mind about that, and knowing what you've told me--truth or lie--I'd weigh it all carefully. Besides, he's not the only man. Doesn't that ever strike you? Why try to hold him by a spurious bond when there are other men as good-looking, as clever? Is your world so bare of men--no, I'm sure it isn't," she added, for she saw anger rising in the impulsive girl. "There are many who'd want to marry you, and it's better to marry some one who loves you than to hold to one who doesn't love you at all. Is it hate? He saved your life--and that's how you came to know him first, and now you would destroy him! He's a great man. He would not bend to his father's will, and so he was left without a sou of his father's money. All because he has a conscience, and an independence worthy of the best that ever lived.... That's the soul of the man you are trying to hurt. If you had a real soul, there wouldn't be even the thought of this crime. Do you think he wouldn't loathe you, if you do this ghastly thing? Would any real man endure it for an hour? What do you expect to get but ugly revenge on a man who never gave anything except friendship?"
"Friendship--friendship-yes, he gave that, but emotion too."
"You think that real men marry women for whom they only have emotion. You think that he--Carnac Grier--would marry any woman on that basis? Come, ma'm'selle, the truth! He didn't know he was being married, and when you told him it was a real marriage he left you at once. You and yours tricked him--the man you'd never have known if he hadn't saved your life. You thought that with your beauty--yes, you are beautiful--you'd conquer him, and that he'd give in, and become a real husband in a real home. Come now, isn't that it?"
The other did not reply. Her face was alive with memories. The lower things were flying from it, a spirit of womanhood was living in her--feebly, but truly, living. She was now conscious of the insanity of her pursuit of Carnac. For a few moments she stood silent, and then she said with agitation: "If I give this up"--she took from her breast the blue document--"he'd be safe in his election, and he'd marry you: is it not so, ma'm'selle?"