No one could fail to see her care was prompted by deep feeling.
I took off my coat and just turned up my sleeve to satisfy her curiosity, and held out my arm for her to see, laughing half shamefacedly as I did so, to assure her there was no cause for real anxiety, and that she was making much of nothing.
But the effect it had on her was startling indeed.
After glancing at the marks which were fast dying away, for my skin always heals very rapidly, she smoothed them gently and kissed them.
"It is the left arm, Alexis, always the left arm," she said, glancing up with a smile, and speaking as if there were some special significance in the fact—though what that could be I could not even guess, of course.
The chief mark was on the lower part of the upper arm, just above the elbow, and when she had kissed it and had turned it round so that the front part of the forearm, where the muscles are broadest was in full view, I felt her start violently, and heard her catch her breath quickly, as if with a gasp of surprise.
She stared at it for fully a minute without raising her eyes, her only gesture being to pass her fingers across the muscles twice.
When she raised her eyes and looked at me, there was an astounding change in her face. She was as white as death, and trembled so violently that even her face quivered, while her eyes were fixed on me with an expression of wildness and mingled emotions such as I could not read or even guess at.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
She started again as I spoke; and her lips merely moved very slightly as she moistened them with her tongue.