Pimpernel and Rosemary

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"What are you doing with the things?" he asked querulously. "Can't you sit still for once and talk to me?"

He stretched out a long, muscular arm, succeeded in grabbing her dress, and drew her with sudden violence towards him. She tried to resist and to clutch the tunics tightly against her breast, but they fell out of her arms in a heap on the floor. She would have stooped to pick them up, but in a moment Lucien had her by the shoulders, forcing her to turn and to look at him.

"You are kinder to those fellows," he reiterated with his harsh laugh, "than you are to me. Leave those things alone, I say, and get me something to drink. What have you got in the house?"

But Alice for once was obstinate. As a rule even an unspoken wish from Lucien was a law unto her, but this time she wrenched herself free from his grasp, and getting down on one knee she started picking up the tunics from the floor. Lucien watched her for a moment or two through half-closed lids, with an undefinable expression on his lean, swarthy face, and a strange line, almost of cruelty, around his firm lips. Apparently he was not accustomed to seeing his whims thwarted, and no doubt he was impelled by the very human desire to probe his power upon this fond and foolish woman, for suddenly he jumped up, gave the tunics that were still on the floor a vigorous kick which sent them flying to the farthest corner of the room, and roughly grabbed the others which Alice was hugging to her breast.

"I told you," he said with a savage oath, "to leave those things alone and to get me a drink."

For the space of a few seconds, Alice still hesitated; she looked up at him with a pathetic expression of wistfulness and subjection, while she wiped the palms of her moist hands against her tattered apron. Lucien's eyes, meeting hers, lost their savage gleam; he looked almost ashamed of his brutality.

"That's all right, my girl," he said with an indulgent smile. "I didn't mean to be unkind. Get me a drink, there's a good soul. Where did you want to put these things?" he added, as he condescended to stoop and collect the scattered tunics.

Alice's wan face at once beamed with a joy as pathetic as her anxiety had been just now. She even contrived to smile.

"Never mind about them, Lucien," she said, and with rather jerky movements she wiped the top of the table with her apron. Then she turned towards the door: "I'll put the things away presently. I can get you a bottle of that wine you brought in the other day. Would you like that?"

"Yes, I should," the Yank rejoined. "And then you can come and sit still for a bit. That eternal stitch-stitching of yours gets on my nerves. Now," he went on, and, having collected all the tunics, he placed them back upon the table, "why you wanted to fiddle with these tunics I can't imagine. They can't have needed mending. Why, they are practically new."