He held her apart, questioning with impassioned eagerness the face which drooped a little from his, its lids half closed, its cheeks just tinged with flame; then bending, put his lips to the soft white rapture of the throat.
“Isabel! The little balcony above the myrtles?”
“It is secret there. I must go—I dare not stop to say more—Bonbec, let me go. We can talk there alone, and decide what is best to be done. But not now.”
Lingeringly, reluctantly, he let her slip from his arms. She put a finger to her lips.
“Stay here,” she whispered, with a radiant smile. And then once more she approached him, as if irresistibly, and looked with wistful ecstasy into his face.
“How thin and worn you are, dear love,” she said pitifully. “And yet, how can I wish you to have grieved less?”
Once more, moved beyond endurance, he caught her to his heart, and shamed the rosy colour to her lips and neck, until, gently upbraiding him, she broke away.
“Until to-night, soul of my soul,” he said.
The faithful Bissy was waiting for her in the grove. She kept him blithely chatting a little while, and then, hoping the best for her face, went on to rejoin her maid.
Fanchette acknowledged her reappearance as tart as crabs.