He feared to turn his head to see. To know whether it was in reality the woman for whom he had been ready to lay down his life—whom he had considered a princess among women; chaste, pure, modest; whose dethronation had been so recent. Whom he had come to think of as soiled.
Yes! She was there before him in the flesh! This perfidious parody of perfection, this transmuted ideal. He waited for a moment motionless; then raised his cap—a merely mechanical act.
Besides, being a woman, whatever else she might be, she was exempt from rudeness at his hands.
Her sex protected her.
CHAPTER XII
MISUNDERSTANDINGS
"Aren't you going to sit on Our Seat? Or don't you need a rest?"
It was said archly; the significant reference to Our Seat, subtly conveyed. She seemed to have shaken off the depression of yesterday. Was herself; her own blithe, bright self again.