“My dear, how many lovers have used and listened to those words? Is there one pair that hasn’t? I am looking forward, Paul, to when this trouble is over—to the best that is possible for us two if we are alive when it is over. Your way! Flight, concealment for the rest of our lives and a bond of disgrace to hold us together instead of a bond of love which has done no harm to any one and has given a world of happiness to both of us. Paul, my way is the better way! Oh, believe it and leave me! Paul, I am pleading for myself—I am!—and”—the light went out of her eyes, her head and her body drooped a little; he had never seen anything so forlorn as Marguerite suddenly looked—“and, oh, ever so much more than you imagine!” she added, wistfully.
Paul took her by the arm which hung listlessly at her side.
“My dear, I can invent no story which would save me. The first shot was fired at noon to-day, not yesterday. Nothing can alter that. And even if it could be altered, I won’t leave you to face these horrors alone. I brought you to Fez—don’t let us forget that! I hid you in this house. My place is here with you.”
But whilst he was speaking Ravenel had a feeling that he had not reached to the heart of the plan which she had formed upon the roof. The sudden change in her aspect, the quick drop from eager pleading to a forlorn hopelessness, the wistful cry, “I am pleading for myself ever so much more than you imagine!”—No, he had not the whole of her intention. There was more in her mind than the effort to persuade him to leave her. There was a provision, a remedy, if persuasion failed.
Paul let her arm go and drew back a step or two until he leaned against a table of walnut wood set against the wall. Marguerite turned to the dressing-table and stood playing absently with her little ornaments, her brushes, and her combs. Then she surprised him by another change of mood. The eager, tender appeal, the sudden hopelessness were followed now by a tripping flippancy.
“Fancy your caring so much for me, Paul!” she cried, and she tittered like a schoolgirl. “A little dancing thing from the Villa Iris! I am not worth it. Am I, Paul?”
She turned to him, soliciting “Yes” for an answer, smiling with her lips though she could not with her eyes, and keeping these latter lowered so that he should not see them. “Well, since your silence tells me so politely that I am, I’ll give up trying to persuade you to leave me.” She yawned. “I am tired to death, Paul. I shall sleep to-night. And you?”
She cocked her head on one side with a coquettish gaiety, false to her at any time, and never so false to her as now. To Paul, whose memory had warned him for the second time that day, it was quite dreadful to see.
“I shall watch in the court below,” he said, and he moved a step or two away from the little table against the wall.
“Then go, or I shall fall asleep where I stand,” said Marguerite, and she led him to the wide doors opening on to the landing. “I shall leave the doors open, so that you will be within call.”