She was happy to renew monsieur’s acquaintance, she said. And had monsieur been in Paris all these months since they last had the pleasure of seeing him in “nôtre cher Bury”?
Yes, monsieur had been in Paris the whole time: that was to say, ever since, in pursuit of monsieur le duc, he had left Belgium, whither, it would appear, he had been despatched on a fool’s errand.
Mademoiselle gave a little deprecating shrug of her shoulders.
“And monsieur, no doubt, has justified us in our choice of a messenger?” murmured Pamela, from ambush of the box curtains.
Ned turned upon the young voice. His tongue was dry; his very features seemed stiffened into a mechanical expression of suffering.
“Yes,” he said. “I have been as great a fool as Uriah.”
The girl gave a little laugh. Probably she understood only the vague inference. She drew aside the curtain and looked upon the house. Her head budded from dusk into light, standing out like an angel’s seen in a dream. The soft moulding of her face and neck was painted in dim sweet eclipse—violet, where it intensified in the deeper curves. In her shadowy hair—like a dryad’s curled by moonlight—a single diamond—a very star of morning—burned. It was Ned’s fate—the common irony of love—to find the prize figure never so desirable in his sight as at the moment of its bestowal on another. His heart was sick with a very hunger as he looked down on her.
“O Dieu—quelle horreur!” she exclaimed, referring to some one of the audience. She tapped her foot, drew back her head, suppressed a tiny yawn.
“What has become of Edward?” said she, as if she were unconscious that their visitor were not withdrawn.
“It is my name,” said Ned.