“Monsieur, I intended going—”
“I can’t hear what you say,” he interrupted.
“You’ll have to sit down then; I can’t speak any louder; I’m afraid that I shall cry,” in spite of herself her voice trembled at the last words.
“Why should you cry?” he asked, and he sat down at the table beside her, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, turned his eyes upon her with a look that blended undisguised anger with a strange and passionate hunger.
She was biting her lip,—the under one,—unconscious of the fact that by so doing she rendered the corners of her mouth quite distracting; but he perceived both cause and result, and both the anger and the hunger in his gaze deepened as he looked, apparently in a blacker humor than ever.
“Why should you cry?” he said again, after a minute; “you are in a beautiful spot, listening to most excellent music, and you had with you (before I come) a friend very agreeable. Why should you cry?”
She clasped her hands hard and fast together.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, “I—I hardly know how to speak in the noise and the crowd! I feel quite crazy! I don’t know what I am saying—” she stopped short.
He leaned a little towards her.
“Let us walk outside a minute,” he said. “Monsieur will surely know that we are not far. In the air it is better,—yes?”