Her face changed, and she sat gazing at me in silence for a moment. There was that in her eyes—but there!—why be, a second time, a fool?
“You do not seem well,” she said. “Nor strong. Are you quite sure you can bear the journey?”
“Quite sure, Madame.”
She made a little gesture of impatience.
“I have to thank you, Madame,” I added, “for your kindness in receiving me here. It was very foolish of me to be ill.”
“Very foolish,” she agreed, looking at me again. “Very foolish. I do not think you realize how foolish. I had thought you a man of wit, M. de Marsan, but I find you very dense!”
I flushed at the words, but dared not look at her. I must go, or I should be upon my knees before her, a beggar for her slightest favor. I glanced at Fronsac, who stood with folded arms, frowning deeply.
“Adieu, then, Madame,” I said.
She held out her hand to me. I knelt and kissed it, not daring to look up into her face; remembering, with a great rush of tenderness, the times I had already kissed it. I was aflame to snatch her to me, to assert my claim to her, to kiss her arms, her neck, her lips, to ask her if she had forgot that scene in the moonlight——
“M. de Fronsac,” she was saying, “listen—I have a little story I wish you to hear. You, M. de Marsan, remain where you are. There was once a girl taken suddenly from a convent, where she had spent her whole life, and planted in the midst of a turbulent court. The ruler of the court looked on her with lustful eyes, yet had the honor to offer her his title. But she heard strange tales of him which frightened her, and at last she saw another, nearer her own age, who seemed to her the very rose of gallantry and courage. So she put away from her all thought of the other, and at last—one night—her lover claimed her. But the other lay dying. He was lord of wide lands and of a proud title. These, he said, he wanted her to have, even at this last moment, when their marriage must be one unconsummated. And as she knelt beside his bed, listening to him in patience, for she remembered he was dying, of a sudden the thought came to her—why not take these things for her lover? Oh, it would be a joy to give him place and power—more than her mere self! Why not give him these as well?”