"Would you have me coarse and grimy to be a fitting match for your partisans?" she retorted.
His tone of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her childish merriment quickly gave place to a feeling of unexplainable disappointment.
"I humbly beg your pardon," he said quietly, "And must crave your kind indulgence for my mood: but I have been so anxious ..."
"Why should you be anxious about me?"
She had meant to say this indifferently, as if caring little what the reply might be: but in her effort to seem indifferent her voice became haughty, a reminiscence of the days when she still was the daughter of the Duc de Marny, the richest and most high-born heiress in France.
"Was that presumptuous?" he asked, with a slight touch of irony, in response to her own hauteur.
"It was merely unnecessary," she replied. "I have already laid too many burdens on your shoulders, without wishing to add that of anxiety."
"You have laid no burden on me," he said quietly, "save one of gratitude."
"Gratitude? What have I done?"
"You committed a foolish, thoughtless act outside my door, and gave me the chance of easing my conscience of a heavy load."