He drew a chair for her near the writing-table, turned up the lamp, and pulled down the blind, half indignant that his love—oh! when he saw her he felt she was his love, and nothing else—that this cruel love of his, who had caused him such throes, should have lowered herself thus, and have forgotten her high estate and womanly dignity to come to him! But half despairing—for he saw nothing but an abyss—an abyss of shame for her, of dishonour for him, in this.
“Why did you come?” he asked her, when his emotion permitted him to think. “It is madness—madness—for you to come here! And at this hour!”
“Why did you not come—to me?” she gasped, rising in her chair. “My husband sent for you—and you would not come!”
“You wrote me my dismissal,” said Hugh, bitterly. “You felt a whim, a fancy, not to see me any more. You gratified it. You did not think what suffering it would cause me. You only pleased your vanity. It pleased your vanity to think you could hurt a man who has not been hurt by a woman before.”
He stopped short, for a sudden light came upon her face.
“What?” she whispered, leaning forward, her features losing their contraction, her pallor lessening. “No woman hurt you before! I was told you loved your wife!”
She said the word “wife” reluctantly. Hugh gazed at her wonderingly. His eyes travelled eagerly over her countenance. Every line was dear to him. The dimples about her mouth—how sweet they were!
But suddenly he remembered himself—his position—and her, his patient. He recalled himself to a sense of propriety, and assumed a calm which he did not feel.
“I was very sorry to receive your dismissal,” he began, in as ordinary a tone of voice as he could command, leaning up against the book-shelves in the shadow opposite to her, and folding his arms with a vague instinct to repress the turbulent beating of his heart. “But I am still more sorry that you, princess, should have stooped to come to me.”
Then he tried to explain why he had not gone to her at the count’s bidding. He spoke of professional etiquette, of the duty imposed upon members of his craft to support the rules that upheld their dignity. She leant back in her chair listening, with a curious smile on her pale lips.