“So it is for my sake!” he said.
“No, it is not for your sake, my friend,” I answered earnestly. “At least, not wholly. I am itching to leave this place. There is no quiet for me here.”
He looked at me for a moment questioningly, but I did not meet his eyes. My secret must remain my own.
“Very well,” he said quietly at last, “since you wish it, we will set out to-day. I will inform Madame la Duchesse. You will doubtless wish to thank her for her kindness.”
“Yes,” I assented thickly. “Yes.”
It would try my strength to set eyes on her again—to speak to her. But I was a man, thank God! I could hide my heart!
Yet when at last we stood before her, I forgot my injured pride in the joy of seeing her—the calm brow, the dark eyes, the arching mouth, the white hand, and the swell of the arm lost in the lace above. What a woman! No longer the girl fresh from the convent—the fine lady! A duchesse—a queen!
“And so you are leaving us, M. de Marsan?” she asked at last.
Her voice brought me back to myself—she on the hill-top, I in the valley.
“Yes, I am leaving, Madame,” I said. “I am quite well again, and my friend here is hungering for Cadillac and those that await him there.”