“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately—somewhere whence we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”
“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! There is a little accommodating place—the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the harbour. Do you know it? No—I forgot the world is all to open for you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o’clock to-morrow morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper of our intention to anyone. Now go, go!”
He left her, rapturous but, once without her radiance, struck his breast and sighed, “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”
And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor, angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously, timidly, and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a bantam.
“Is it not my friend that you meant, mademoiselle? I will summon him back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”
“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul—least of all his brother and happier rival.”
“His——! Ah, mademoiselle, I entreat you, do not torture me!”
“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself! Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many women realize their feelings for the first time in the shock of imminent loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor.”
“Poor Miguel—poor fellow!”
“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”