"Have you no pity for me?"
"None, you have crossed my path, you have clouded my sky."
Had she pity for him, fool that he was to ask. Has the owner of the favourite at Goodwood pity for the jockey who swoons in a death-sickness, causing the next to come in a head's length? Has the eagle pity for the young mother's wail for her babe as he carried it aloft to feed the young? No, she told herself she had spoiled him, allowing him the entree to her presence for the past seven or eight years at will. She cared for him too for his bold, fierce, passionate nature, that is—in a way, if only he would not insist on monopoly, but she would be willing to barter one clasp of the hand, one look from the eyes of gay, genial, handsome, fascinating Captain Trevalyon for the total banishment of her bold wooer.
"I have crossed your path, clouded your sky, and is this all the comfort you give me for years of devotion?" he said slowly, and in a broken voice. "Crossed your path because my love lives, while yours for me is dead; crossed your path, clouded your sky, because I am constant and wish to have you for my wife; wish to keep you in my arms. Lincoln Tompkins never knew; our world never knew; crossed your path? By the stars, Kate, I will not give you up!" And there is a sudden fierceness in his tones, while his breath comes hard and fast. "Crossed your path? 'tis Trevalyon who has again crossed mine. Gad! how I hate him." And he set his teeth. "To think, too, that with your high spirit, you should plead to him for his love."
"George Delrose, dare to repeat one word of a conversation you played the sneak to listen to, and you shall come to grief."
And she started to her feet, receding several paces from him in rage and mortification.
"Kate, dear, forgive me," and he is beside her; and strong man that he is, he holds her by force in his arms until she is still.
"It is my love for you that maddens me. My queen, my beauty, come back to me. Give your thoughts to me—you must, you shall."
"What shall I do with him?" she thought. "I love the other man, but if
I cannot win him, I shall gratify my ambition by marrying Haughton
Hall, and in petting my idol gratify myself; and so to pet my old love
until it's all over."
And now puss begins to purr.