Yet as he spoke, his heart sank within him. It seemed as if his confession would be more difficult to-day than ever. To make his path more thorny, that beloved face looked so confiding, so sure that there could not be the shadow of a secret, that it would have been a thousand times easier to walk up to the cannon’s mouth, than to speak the few words that must break forever the steady bond linking them together.
But for all Mrs. Desfrayne’s calm, suave looks, she was keenly watching her son. His absence alone had hindered her from finding out long ago that some shadow lay between them. Her practised, maternal eyes could read him through.
“What has happened, and why is he afraid to tell me?” she meditated, while to outward seeming engaged in regarding the pleasant scene about her with half-childish interest.
Her brain ran swiftly over every imaginable train of events, possible or impossible, that might have happened, seeking some clue to the evident mystery.
Not for a moment did her mind revert to what, after all, was the most simple and obvious explanation.
They moved to quit the gardens.
“Is not that the Guiscardini?” she asked of Paul.
“I believe so.”
Mrs. Desfrayne had put up her glass, so the look and tone with which her inquiry was answered escaped her.
“I don’t know why,” she continued; “but I have taken an inveterate dislike to that woman. She reminds me of a magnificent cobra. You know, Paul, I have a foolish way of taking likes and dislikes.”