"It would be only painful to us both, Madame."
"You prefer to think of me as ignoble, treacherous and base," she said with sudden vehemence, "you do not wish to know for certain and from my own lips that Gaston de Stainville . . ."
She paused abruptly and bit her lips, he watching her keenly, she not knowing that she was watched.
This was going to be a fight and he knew it, a dire conflict between distress and pride. At first he had hoped that she was prepared to yield, that she had sought this interview because the load of sorrow and of humiliation being more than she could bear, she had turned instinctively to the only man in the world who could ease and comfort her: whose boundless, untiring love was ready to share the present pain, as it had shrunk from participating in the glories of the past. But as she spoke, as she sat there before him now, white, passive, disdainful even in her self-abasement, he knew that his hour—Love's hour—had not yet struck. Pride was not yet conquered.
The dominant ruler of a lifetime will not abdicate very readily, and though distress and sorrow are powerful opponents, they are more transient, more easily cast aside than Pride.
"As you say, milor," she now said more quietly, "the matter is only painful to us both. I understand that your estimate of me is not an exalted one. You despise—you probably hate me! Well! so be it. Let us not think of our own feelings in this matter, milor! I entreat you to ignore my very existence for the time being, only thinking of the Stuart prince and of his dire peril!
"'Tis because of him I have begged for this interview," she resumed with just a thought of that commanding manner, which she was wont to assume whenever matters of public import were discussed: "I need not reiterate the fact that he is in deadly danger. Le Levantin, a fast brigantine, milor, is even now being equipped by His Majesty for the nefarious expedition. Le Levantin or perhaps Le Monarque—the latter is quite ready to sail at any time, and with the map and my letter it will be easy . . . oh! so easy! . . . Oh!" she added with a sudden uncontrollable outburst of passionate appeal, "milor, he was your friend . . . can nothing be done? . . . can nothing be done?"
"I do not know, madame," he replied coldly, "how should I?"
"But surely, surely you remember your promise to him, milor," she said impatient at his coldness, unable to understand this lack of enthusiasm. "You remember that night, in the Château d'Aumont—the banquet . . . his farewell to you . . . his trust, his confidence . . . the assurance you gave him . . ."
"So much has occurred since then, Madame," he said simply. "The guidance of affairs has been in your hands. . . . I have lost what little grasp I ever had of the situation. . . . As you know, I am neither clever nor strong—and I have only too gladly relied on abler wits than mine own. . . ."