But already Fernande had recovered her self-possession; and even before the first words of abject self-abasement had passed his lips, she uttered a low moan of pain and tottered as if about to fall. She would have fallen—no doubt most gracefully—had not his arm proved to be once more so conveniently near.
"'Twas cruel, mon cousin," she murmured feebly, "to speak such words, whilst I am too weak to raise my voice in defence of those I love."
"Mademoiselle Fernande," he said appealingly, "I said just now that I had never given you cause to call me an inhuman wretch. Until a while ago I could have asserted on my soul that I had never been cruel to a woman in my life. Now you see me shamed beyond endurance. Will you believe me when I say that I would give twenty years of my life to unsay the thoughtless words I spoke just now? Mademoiselle Fernande, will you deign to forgive a poor wretch who hath never had a knowledge of soft words, but who would sooner have bitten out his tongue ere he uttered the senseless ones which have so justly angered you?"
Ronnay de Maurel's head was bent, in utter humility and remorse, while he spoke, or he could not have failed to note the look of triumph which shot out of the girl's eyes from beneath her half-closed lids, or the swift sigh of satisfaction which escaped her parted lips.
"We'll call those words unsaid, dear cousin," she said softly. "I know, alas! that between your political aims and our own there is an abyss of divergent ideals! You and your party have the power now—we are humbled and helpless—and must, therefore, rely on your generosity not to embitter the joy which we felt when we trod once again the soil of our beloved country, after years of poverty and of exile."
"Protestations would come ill from me," he murmured. "You would scorn them—and justly, too—after my unwarrantable transgression."
"You will have to be patient with us, mon cousin. We may have erred in the past, we may be foolish and misguided now, but you must try and remember always that every one of our actions is guided solely by our love of France—by the burning patriotism which helped us to endure exile and untold misery for the sake of our beliefs and of our aspirations. Mistaken we may be; but until you have heard the advocacy of our cause, I pray you do not judge us as harshly as you have obviously been led to do."
"Mademoiselle Fernande...."
"Nay, dear cousin, let us not dwell on that sad subject any longer. See! the sun is high in the heavens—the birds are singing a deafening anthem of joy ... and," she added archly, "I am still breakfastless."
Again de Maurel had to chide himself for a clumsy and selfish lout. For himself he would gladly have continued to dwell on the sad subject, seeing that it was being argued by an exquisite creature with the rosiest of lips and the most enthralling voice he had ever heard, even whilst she leaned her ethereal form against his arm, and cast an occasional look on him from out a pair of eyes as limpid and as blue as the sky. But the word "breakfastless" once more struck him with remorse. To think that this beautiful and diaphanous being could suffer hunger, discomfort, even pain, seemed to him the most monstrous outrage in the whole scheme of creation.