"May I not kiss your finger tips once more, Rose Marie?" he pleaded.
The words had escaped his lips almost involuntarily. The longing for the tiny remembrance had been too strong to be stilled.
A kiss on her finger tips, one crumb of bread to a man dying of hunger, the sponge steeped in water to slake a raging thirst.
She turned to him. The tears had dried on her cheeks by now, and her eyes were seared and aching. She looked on his face, but did not lift her hand. Papa Legros, who felt an uncomfortable lump in his throat, busied himself with a careful examination of the door handle.
"It will probably be a long farewell," said Michael gently. "Will you not let me hold your hand just once again, my snowdrop? Nay, not mine, but another's—a king now amongst men."
Then, as very slowly, and with eyes fixed straight into his own, she raised her hand up to his, he took it, and looked long at each finger tip, tapering and delicately tipped with rose.
"See the epicure I am," he said, whilst a quaint smile played round the corners of his lips; "your little hand rests now in mine. I know that I may kiss it, that my lips may linger on each exquisite finger tip, until my poor brain, dizzy with joy, will mayhap totter into the land of madness. I know that I may kiss this cold little hand—so cold! I know that it will chill my lips—and still I wait—for my last joy now is anticipation. Nay, do not draw your hand away, my beautiful ice-maid. Let me hold it just one little brief while longer. Are we not to be friends in the future? Then as a friend may I not hold and kiss your hand?"
She could not speak, for sobs which she resolutely suppressed would rise in her throat, but she allowed her hand to rest in his; there was some solace even in this slight touch.
"Is it not strange," he said, "that life will go on just the same? The birds will sing, the leaves in autumn will wither and will fall. Your dear eyes will greet the first swallow when it circles over the towers of St. Gervais. Nature will not wear mourning because a miserable reprobate is eating out his heart in an agony of the might-have-been."
"I pray you, milor, release my hand," she murmured, for of a truth she no longer could bear the strain. "My father waits—"